This Place Is a Prison
by The Hart and Hound
Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. [Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. ItachiNaruto.]
1. Begin

Title: This Place Is A Prison (1)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: M

Characters: Naruto, Itachi, Sasori

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

- - - - -

"_Up until yesterday, you were laughing_."

Kyo, "304 Goushitsu..."

- - - - -

Dawn breaks lightly over the horizon, slowly and cold, a grey morning with overcast clouds that move in little strands together. It's the lining of a blanket, he thinks, the inside of my futon. He wills this to be reality, looking straight up into the cool air, ignoring the fact that there is quite pointedly a branch poking into the flak jacket (_now black, because for some reason blue had seemed inappropriate after _he_ left, much too informal and relaxed. And above all, he is not relaxed anymore. He only barely remembers the last time that he was._)

He knows he shouldn't be lying here, because somewhere in a post town near here, there is someone waiting for him to train him, to make him stronger than he was before. He has to be stronger, because what he is now isn't what he -needs- to be, and if he isn't, he can't make good on his promise. (_A secret promise to himself as well as Sakura, because speaking the words out loud could not possibly contain his vow, his determination._)

Jiraiya will be angry with him if he waits any longer.

His hand twitches, as if waiting to move, to actually _do_ something, but instead he flinches, feeling the tendons stretch, lift, and break its hold. He doesn't have the strength to get up now, he's not sure he'd even have the strength to close his eyes away from the blanket sky. He is like a young tree, all sinew and youth, with no support.

It bothers him that he could say the same of many other parts of his life.

_You're vulnerable_, he says to himself, commanding his body to move, _anything_ to move. He can feel that it's all there and well, it just won't respond to his commands. This lack of control (_so like him_) frustrates him, and he growls, eyes squinting. He feels stupid, lying on the ground, an open target to anyone that could walk by.

He vaguely thinks of nameless and faceless opponents that Jiraiya would have him think exist, terrible devils in the night that want to suck out his soul, he thinks with a laugh. _("They don't want your soul, because really, what use would they have for it?" Jiraiya says with a rough bark of what must have once been laughter over a cup of sake, room temperature and poor quality. "They want to take the soul that you house. But that's another demon entirely," he says with amusement, and absently rubs at his stomach. He mirrors it, trying to ignore the familiar flare of chakra between rough fingertips. Surely he imagines it. )_

A group named after the red moon where the crimson clouds fly across their cloaks. He's seen them, he knows names and abilities and most worrying yet being the -faces-, but they never seemed real (_They're wearing masks, they must be, because how else could anyone so much like -him-?_). With a fleeting fancy, he thinks of mist that rolls along the ground, but is never actually touched, just rolls along his fingers with phantom kisses. The Akatsuki are real, but they are not part of Naruto's reality. _(Evil exists, just never close to him, he thinks like a child, curled up in a ball with a hand against his seal.)_

Again he strains his muscles, anger giving him strength and fire to move and at last he is on his knees, clutching at the dead leaves. With another great strain, he lifts up his head and looks in the direction of the post town, trying to focus on the pathway, one tree at a time. The walk is difficult and already his breath is labored. He irritably swears an oath to himself to never train that hard without reason again.

It's a lie to himself, but he's good at that anyway.

He can't recall ever being so tired in his life (_except for one time after the Valley of the End, but he pretends that never happened, things like that just -don't- happen between friends, so it must be someone else_.) The path goes on for a long while, and he swears he hears the very motion of his muscles, can see the protein that contracts and releases his body. His hearing is better than what it used to be, and he is glad (_frustrated_) that it has. He attributes it to the Kyuubi, that thing that even now bashes against its container, prowling to and fro until he at lasts escapes.

Tsunade theorizes it will happen one day.

Jiraiya laughs it off and compliments Naruto's good strong willpower.

Naruto smiles and knows better.

Yondaime would tell him, but he is dead. And for some reason that makes Naruto feel a greater sense of loss than when he has lost anybody.

He doesn't like being indebted to the fox, doesn't even like to acknowledge that he is never really by himself. It is something that makes him special, and above all else, he wants absolutely nothing to do with that sort of thing.

The town is still when he gets there, stiller than it ought to be as if many of the people simply failed to get up and see that it was morning. He can't particularly blame them, listening to the percussion of the creak and hinge of his bones. The sun is covered by a haze of grey, and it casts pale shadows against the tree trunks and street signs. Something is inherently wrong, he can feel it in the flex of a finger and the tickle of his nose.

The smell of the place is all wrong, he decides, looking for a place to get his morning soba. There are no children heading to school, there are no early travelers, and most notably, nothing is cooking. (_ He isn't sure what upsets him more, but his stomach would prefer he just forgot about the people_.) If he had to describe the state of things, he would describe it by color, and that would be white, the presence of none and all.

(_"White is the color of death, everyone knows that," he hears a child say from the temple on a hillside in Konoha. They both have incense, a strangely cloying scent that reminds Naruto of tea and spices._

"_Why is that?" he asks, looking over curiously at the altar, a small shrine meant for a small god, but to him it is enormous. He's seen them carry it out during the fall matsuri, the day of his birthday and another event, one that was quite catastrophic that no one speaks to him of but is more than happy to mention to friends when he passes by. He felt that there was some other attachment, some other meaning and that white and fall were meant for each other._

"_Because the Yondaime was buried in white, of course."_

_What the child didn't know was that it was not what he wore but the wrappings around him. The Death God had not been kind to the body of the Hokage. Naruto knew and yet did not know this, but with startling clarity could remember the chrysanthemums and lotus that they had thrown to the water for him on a cold autumn day._

_It was the earliest image he retained._)

"Feh, how stupid," he says to himself, looking around as he moved along a street on the way to the inn. The roads are _not_ white he says to himself, and tries to rid the smell of funeral incense from his nose. His imagination is getting the better of him, even after all the long-winded lectures he has had from Jiraiya. Even more irritable than before, he looks over to an empty ramen stand and sighs. "There's nothing quite as depressing as a closed ramen shop," he mutters.

There is something that doesn't sit well with him as he looks into the shop, and he immediately feels his hackles rise, and look it over more closely. He feels like an animal when he is like this, on edge and liquid silver in his veins. He is more awake when using Kyuubi's supernatural senses. At last he catches the sign he is looking for. Reflected in the aluminum of the wall coverings, farther down another street is the shadows of those with black cloaks with red clouds upon them.

He doesn't run or shout, he doesn't even turn around, he just continues walking as calmly as he can. They haven't seen him yet, and if they haven't seen them, then they are not a problem.

_("If I cover my head, no monsters can get me." he says resolutely, a five year old with hands clutching the edge of his futon. "If I can't see them, they can't see me.")_

He knows this isn't true, but he'd like to think it might be.

Another step, another city block, and still there is no shadow of the red moon upon him, yet there is still a frightening silence, thick and heavy against his legs and arms. _Thick water, like the ocean_, he thinks and tries to keep up his brisk pace, _the kind that pulls you under_. It is then that he realizes that he's trapped in an illusion. Albeit a very clever one, but an illusion nonetheless.

He tries to cut off his chakra flow, to make it stop, this horrible whiteness.

When it doesn't work, he thinks for a moment that it might be all true.

He's not calm anymore because he's trapped without even realizing it had happened. Every feeling in his being calls to lash out, to overpower and eliminate the threat. A part of his consciousness grows indignant at the thought of being caught at all. Someone else is pulling the strings and Naruto follows just like he's supposed to. And whoever he is following was an immaculate planner. Without meaning to, he feels some begrudging respect for this person.

He looks behind himself, waiting to see something, _anything_ would do so that he could target his frustration. At first there is nothing as he looks around and on top of the buildings, but upon a double take, he sees the silhouette of someone standing a block down the street. It doesn't move, it doesn't even seem to notice him like before, only this time, Naruto can _feel_ eyes watching him. It itches against his neck, rolls down with the humid morning sweat.

"How long do you plan on making me go in circles, hmm?" he says with the pretense of anger, but there's no feeling in it; he just talks to be heard, a habit that Jiraiya finds increasingly annoying.

_("No one will talk to me, so I will talk to myself." Naruto says, watching the other children play at the park. "If no one else, I am happy for my own company.")_

As if he has provoked motion from his opponent, the shadows suddenly shift to his left and forming, make the familiar silhouette of two Akatsuki members, all fire and darkness, but with none of the warmth.

His arms are still shaking and his chakra is exhausted from the night before. He knows there's no way he can beat these two criminals, no matter what state he's in, not by himself. (_Nothing can measure the bitterness that his heart churns, one painful pump at a time, at this thought_.) With fickle amusement, he knows they must have gotten up pretty early to catch him off guard like this.

Reluctantly, he admits to himself that while he is likely to be overtaken, he is most certainly not defeated before it even starts.

"Good morning, Naruto-kun," says one of the figures, face still obscured by the wide rice hat and strips of white cloth that stir a little in the breeze (_like wrappings that they use on the corpses, but he'll never say that out loud, at least not to their faces_). The voice is deep and mellow, and all too familiar. (_He would put a face to him, but it is all too much like Sasuke's, and that wound is still too fresh and too new. He'd rather be talking to a shapeless shadow_.)

They don't say anymore, and Naruto knows its his turn to speak, as if this were some game, but his mouth doesn't move as it ought to and instead his legs do, away from the two Akatsuki with a desperation that Naruto has never felt so keenly and strongly, more powerful than the swelling of his heart that now beats a taboo and the rush of air from between his lungs.

He doesn't look behind, doesn't give any thought to the fact that someone might be chasing him, that he is in real danger, and that Jiraiya's ghost stories might not be so silly. Three years time, he had been told, three years before the shadows return. It had only been two.

He's frantic and sprinting, feeling claw tips that normally hide behind his (_human_) skin that move to strike something that he can't see. It's all peripheral and Naruto is not known for being observant.

He looks behind and yes, someone is chasing him, the taller of the two Akatsuki, going at the inhuman rate of a chakra user, sweeping up dust and leaves with each step. (He_'s the typhoon, a whirlwind that smells of blood, and he will -swallow- Naruto up_.) There were two, he thinks to himself, two of them were there only a moment before.

_You're foolish,_ says something that rises up into his mind and throat, forcibly making him choke on the last breath of air he had taken.

Sliding into an alleyway, he quickly opens up the wooden doors of a broken up old style house, the shoji groaning in their track and shuddering as the lithe body moved through and on up the stairs. No one lives here, no one would bother to. The house is rank with decay and death. For some reason he thinks that perhaps no one has died here _yet_. (_This house is a beginning, and even now he is trying to divine what that might be._)

_You're not running fast enough._

Again Naruto feels choked and pressured, like some great weight is now upon his feet, making his steps much too slow. The weakness in his limbs makes him throb with the tickle of adrenaline, and it -hurts-. Another room passes, another staircase, and soon he is hiding in an old tatami room, where the floor has rotted and grown black with age. _That is a place where something is meant to die_, he says to himself, hoping that it isn't him. Vaguely, he wonders if he has any salt.

With shaking hands, he pulls an exploding tag out of his pouch, attaching it to a kunai with a lick and a promise, and he prepares himself for a last stand. The marked sheet is treacherous, on a timer that will go off just as soon as it is thrown through the air. The air molecules will separate, everything will burn and he will not be able to see anything. The world will end by fire, he quotes, and can imagine Iruka hovering over his back as he flies through the pages of a history book.

There is a shadow on the shoji next to him, slow moving and painfully close as it moves to the door he had entered but not closed. HE doesn't move, doesn't breath, doesn't even listen to the sizzle of the tag, preparing at that very moment to burn. There are two shadows, and one is taller, but the other moves with such grace that Naruto just stares mesmerized as they come to the opening, more part of the house than Naruto who sits, holding pants of tiredness in with panic. Ghosts, ghosts and spectres, he thinks, and childish terror takes him for a moment, blue eyes very -aware-.

"You run quickly for someone who is so keen to fight," says the smaller of the two, ambiguous and elegant in form. The dark words roll over him and make him shudder with memory, because quite simply, that tone belongs to someone else.

_("There is someone I have to kill," says the boy who shares the same face as another.)_

The taller one moves toward him and he lets out a breath, feeling the air rush in and out to help his burning lungs. And with all the speed he can muster, he tells his arm to move, screams out at it from behind his eyelids. When it finally does, sliding from between his fingers with a song, the exploding tag ignites against his skin, where he can already feel the blisters forming.

_You're not helping us._

When the tag explodes in its entirety, the floor moves out from beneath him, in that very same black spot and he falls, swiftly as the embers catch the woodwork and glow steadily, setting everything aflame.

_You're weak, helpless, HELPLESS_.

He swallows a gasp as he hits the floor, rubble falling on him and pinning him to the mildewing tatami and foundation where its fire begins to spread onto his clothes. Naruto tenatively tries to lift himself, but quickly falls back down, trying not to look at the wreckage of his legs, where very white bone glares at him from beneath black skin. He's trapped and he feels every nerve in his body with acute awareness, how the hardwood is smooth and dusty, how the fire snaps and crackles, and breaks

up

his

body.

Looking down from the ceiling above, the two figures look down at him, and he can almost see the horror in his face, his own reflection looking scared and frantic from emotionless eyes. They both move to jump down, but Naruto doesn't see it, because the smoke is in his eyes and his legs are bleeding into the slats between the straw mats and he can't breath, can'tbreathcan'tbreathcan'tbreath...

I don't want to die, he thinks. This isn't me. This isn't me.

_You and I are going to die, and there nothing we can do about it._

- - - - -

Continued...

- - - - -

A/N: Edited 7/28/06


	2. Wake

Title: This Place Is A Prison (2)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

- - - - -

"_See a collapsing dream _

_scatter fast upon the ground._"

Dir en Grey, "Mask"

- - - - -

He would scream, he would raise his voice as high as he could, if he could but recall the motion and the meaning behind it. He knows that he should be horrified and that a tragedy has occurred, but he feels so empty (_ashes and dust, he is nothing but ashes and dust_). At last his throat unclenches and he allows himself to

inhale and

exhale.

There is pain as he breathes, and he turns his head to cough the blackened remains of tar in his throat roughly into the fabric (who's he doesn't care, suffice to say that it is there and warm and smells of funeral pyres and camellia.) There is a flash of remembrance, something brief and glowing brightly from behind his eyes, and his arms and legs tighten against him in recalled pain. There are flames, there is fire, and he doesn't have something to hide under (_a guise of death_) this time.

He had looked _up_ at hell, and for one moment he had feared that this was The End.

It had come down to him instead.

He quickly blinks open eyes, still blue but watery and hazed instead of bright and clear than the usual Naruto. There is still the shadow of smoke in them, turning his eyes red. All he sees is dark, an impenetrable veil that keeps his surroundings a mystery. For a moment he fancies himself in hell after all. It's a funny image, thinking that hell would bother to swallow him up in a cacophony of flames and smoke, and he can imagine that _this_ is what it must have been like on that cold autumn night that ended the life of Konoha's youngest Hokage.

He used to think he would be the next Yondaime.

It lost all its appeal when he realized that it meant to die.

_("Yon-daime" he says, playing with the order of emphasis on the word, thinking himself very clever with all the different meanings he could make with the sounds. "Ne, ne, Hokage-ojii-san, doesn't that mean he was meant to die?"_

_The aging Sandaime says nothing, though for a moment, he looks stricken. Naruto doesn't say it again, because that look and the kanji for 'shi' stand harshly against the watercolor page he had been practicing on. The stroke order alone unsettles his stomach. _

_He doesn't practice kanji anymore.)_

Another tentative look at the darkness and he reaches out, and finds that he can push against it (_and what hope this fills him with_), moving it to the side until at last he sees the dance of firelight outside. Again, he thinks that perhaps he is dead after all, until the freshness of the air hits his mouth and nose. He has never felt something more wonderful on his face (_with the exception of cocoa butter for sunburns; Iruka always insists_).

"For a sly animal, foxes sure are noisy," says a gruff voice, and Naruto almost sighs with relief when he realizes that it is the harsh voice of an Akatsuki member, the tall one with the large sword. He is not in a very safe place, but he figures anything is better than under the smoking wreckage of a house.

"For this particular fox, he has been very quiet." It's that smooth voice again, and it pours over Naruto like water, but it is icy and not at all comforting. There is no warmth in the red eyes that look at him from across the camp through the hole he has made for himself. He catches himself before he can agree with the statement. He has been quiet, and the sound of the woods is hollow for some reason without his voice. Naruto tries not to feel angry, since he knows that he ought not to.

"Don't ruin a good thing, Itachi-san. You'll have him mouthing off in no time." says the rough voiced one, pointedly looking at Itachi with the respect of his station, but an underlying anger. Itachi says nothing, but instead looks at Naruto with his penetrating pinwheel eyes. There is no wicked intent behind them, only a penetrating presence, but Naruto gets the message.

He rolls over and tries to go back to sleep, but not before getting the last word in.

"Don't call me a fox, like some damn animal." His voice is quieter and more strained than he thought possible, and it is like he has not spoken at all, because neither Itachi or Kisame turn his way, just carry on their conversation. (_He hates being ignored, hates not being heard, and now, in the dark, he is very small._) Ashamed for a moment, he wonders if he screamed in his sleep.

There is a long silence from outside his self-contained shelter, but he does not allow himself the chance to regret his comment. He simply pulls the edge of the fabric up over his eyes. At least this time he can cover himself from whatever it is that is trying to get him.

Or at least not look at them (_and their bright red eyes_) for awhile.

- - - - -

_The flames are back again, and that horrible gasping noise (_he's heard it on dying men_) that he knows must be his breathing has returned. There's a log burning like a brand on his leg, a crown of ashes in his hair, and his throat burns with each reluctant (_yet so very hungry_) breath of smoke and embers. Each inhale isn't enough, not enough, not enough...He can't open his eyes, because if he does, he's afraid that he'll cry. No one is going to bring him chrysanthemums and no one is going to remember him, and that above all else is unforgivable and draws deeply (_like those sticks by the creek, the ones he dragged through sand_) a wound in his heart._

_This is the end of the world, he says to himself, this is where I never get up and I never say anything again. This is where I never become Hokage._

_He wonders why he isn't more surprised._

_Where this would usually spark the frustration and anger that drove his body to new feats, he can't today, because today his body doesn't work, just like it didn't under the tree, and doesn't now in the cellar of a rotting house. (_And maybe what it is that is wrong is -him-, that he doesn't work , a toy soldier with no sword.

_The Kyuubi has stopped screaming into his consciousness, and this sudden silence both worries and calms him. On one hand, this might mean the very end of his own as a thinking individual, and can see red chakra that would flow and pour like blood over him, making him into something new. (_He would like that, to simply crumble and rise again, and how does that old legend go, where the phoenix devours the snake..._) At the same time, it could mean that he is already dead and trapped in the body that is surely now becoming one with the ashes of wood and cloth._

_And would it hurt, would his very thought be burnt away with his bones?_

_The shadows have jumped toward him, and he can see the silhouette of the crimson clouds they favor, dancing in the heated air. They land almost silently next to him, stirring up ashes and dust around their feet. One white arm reaches for him before he is pulled up, and Naruto wants to tell them to give up, he's already dead and that a proper pyre would be much better than decaying in the streets of this dusty old town._

_Even now, his legs are throbbing in pain, building the nausea in his stomach to overwhelming levels. He doesn't need to know what sort of things he is made of because he can -see- it, ripped to shreds under splinters and shudders. _

_Already gone, he says but does not speak. No nine tailed demons here, just a corpse that does not feel or practice jutsu, doesn't save friends from certain danger, and most certainly doesn't feel emotions (_although it seems only a second ago he was screaming and panicking as hell came upon him_). Wonderful, he'll be the perfect shinobi when he dies._

"_Is he alive?" asks the taller one, eyes rounded and slitted at the cheeks, a shark by nature and appearance. Perhaps he is drawn by the blood that has scented the air."Will the Kyuubi still be in him even if he's dead?"_

_Naruto hopes not. He doesn't want to share both a body and eternity with something that saw fit to eat him._

_A cool finger is pressed to his throat, and for a moment he is shocked beyond all reason that he is feeling and alive. He's not sure whether to be overjoyed or happy._

"_Hm," says the other in noncommital tones, nodding at his partner and giving a sharp glance into what he assumes are vacant eyes. There is a flicker of recognition in the charcoal (_because they will ignite and become crimson, just like -his-_) eyes, and he feels the hand that had been feeling for a pulse pull up and slip over his eyelids, closing them. He feels one errant hand rubbing through his hair, moving the ashes out of it and soothing him as a genjutsu falls over him and prompts him to sleep deeply. _

"_I think I'd prefer if we left him alive, just to be sure. Let him keep all his limbs this time. He won't be troublesome." _

_He won't remember, or so the criminals (_said saviors_) hope, but Naruto wakes with clarity and a _

- - - - -

Start.

_- - - - - _

Sitting straight up, Naruto takes a breath in, and it sounds so haunted and pained that he thought that maybe death had decided to take him a little later than originally guessed, but instead he feels the burn of smoke in his lungs and the heat on him so intensely he claws at himself irrationally. Something tears and he falls silent.

Without any warning (_though with the slightest anxious whispering of wind in his keen ears_), Uchiha Itachi is beside him, holding him firmly around the wrists, and glaring so intently that Naruto figures he has done something wrong and was going to be punished greatly.

Looking up at him _(and oh, how the warmth of the firelight turned his eyes blue)_, he waits expectantly, because there was always something he needed to be punished for. The red sharingan eyes do not waver, but wait for the calm that Naruto can feel spreading. It's hypnotism, it's magic, just like they did in the hospital when he was younger, trying to make him stop clutching his stomach.

He relents, though the spark of memory is behind his gaze.

"Are you able to hear me, Naruto?" Itachi says, slowly and smoothly. Naruto almost forgets to respond, he so intent on the dulcet sound.

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I?" he says in a grating voice, and he can feel his vocal chords scream at him for ever daring to draw breath. He has screamed them raw and now they feel the need to return the favor.

"Do you know what's happened?" Itachi says in the same tone again, ignoring the rest of his rant. One hand strays to lift and look under the blanket, where Naruto briefly feels cold against his bleeding legs, the bandages nearly useless. His clothes are in tatters, but he can't bring himself to particularly care, not the when the fire is still so fresh in his mind.

Naruto nods (_how could he not know?_) and prepares to say more, but Itachi has gone and left Naruto's wrists on his side, cold and a little tingly from the rush of blood. The blanket has been drawn back up on him again and the red eyes of the sharingan stare at him again from across the camp, lulling him to drowsiness. Naruto wonders if they will simply let him bleed to death, just let the ground soak him up like bitter rain.

For some reason he doesn't mind, because he doesn't think he can stand to look at Uchiha Itachi a moment longer. A lump forms in his throat and he swallows it, trying not to think of D-rank missions and lying in the rain thinking of Sasuke walking away from him to die.

It doesn't seem to work.

(_And it never will._)

- - - - -

Third time's the charm, he mutters to himself as he regains consciousness, though this time waking is tinged with pain and nausea, and many white bandages. He's not covered in a blanket this time, or close to a fire pit to keep him warm, but instead is laid out on a sheet with surgical equipment around him, simple things like rubbing alcohol and compounds that he hazards to guess are supposed to make him feel better.

He hopes that one of them can do that. (_Everything else seems to fail_.)

He focuses as best as he can on his body, trying to force complete awareness into his aching form. Here are my toes that have kissed burning coals, and here are my legs made of wood and dried bones that aren't healed yet and are soaked in bloody bandages. Here is my stomach, that carries the monster from the closet (_he pretends doesn't exist_). And here is my heart, and inside it's hollow.

Without warning, cool hands are on his face, feeling his slick forehead for fever. They are gentle and soothing and Naruto can never recall when someone touched him so kindly. He thinks it might have never happened, even though he knows it's not true. Despite all that, he still feels the neutrality in them, care for an item, and object and never a human being.

_("I'm sorry." There are words, but it is more the emotion that wakes a squalling child, clutching tightly at the flak jacket of a Hokage he inherently _knows_ is not coming back. There's a kiss to his forehead and a tear, before all that remains are spirals, in his eyes and in his body. Comfort will always be followed by...)_

Pain shot up through his legs to hit him in the chest in a chain reaction and he winces harshly against it as his mind seizes away from it. A hand is still on his face, firmly gripping the side of his face, daring him to turn away. But now instead of just the sterile ceiling, he can (_but wishes not to_) look up into the face of Uchiha Itachi. The sharingan eyes are not on this time, and he knows that this time he will not be made to go to sleep again. The harshness around Itachi's eyes is gone, leaving what Naruto thinks is a beautiful face that is pale and _borrowed_. This isn't Itachi's face, it's just an imitation, he tells himself. Just like a Noh mask.

"It is unfortunate that you would wake at this time." says Itachi, lips barely moving and voice almost a whisper. There is a quiet that needs to be maintained, and besides, loud words will not gain him much now.

"It's unfortunate I wake at all. This fucking hurts," he says with a grin, something so practiced and well placed that no one can see its phoniness. It's armor, it's a shell because it's hard to hate someone who smiles all the time. He knows that smiles will always throw them all off.

Itachi nods, and for a second he sees a hint of something else in those dark coal eyes; he won't name it regret but instead calls it painful intent, something crawling in the corners. "It was very stupid of you to use an exploding tag in that old house. Your planning is very poor."

"I'm not exactly known for being very intelligent." Another cheeky grin.

"Did you think that you would stop us from entering the room?"

"No."

"Then did you think that you could possibly hurt us?"

"No."

"Well, then what did you think, Naruto-kun?" He knows that the suffix isn't endearing him to the criminal, after all, there's no honor between brothers in the Uchiha clan. Its just where he is in life. Below. And Itachi, right now, is most definitely above him. But there is no way to truthfully answer the question, because there is no defined one either.

"I don't know."

Itachi sighs, in what must have once been a show of amusement or incredulity, but is now only a skeleton of a feeling. Itachi quickly moves to gather up more bandages, working with efficient movement, no energy wasted.

"You've burnt your legs, and it appears that your tailed demon isn't healing it very quickly. We've done the best we can, but until we get to our destination, this is all we can give. As a shinobi, you should at least be able to handle that."

Naruto glances down at his bleeding legs with a grimace, and can still see the rubble that was (_is_) burning. He resists the urge to hitch his legs up to his chest. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm certain that the damn fox will fix this before you get to wherever you mean to take me."

"Then do you or don't you intend to fight us on this?" It's a more inquisitive question than before, almost astonished at the lack of fight in Naruto's voice. He doesn't care because he doesn't think he can even lift his arms, much less fight powerful opponents.

"No," he says softly, and pushes the raging inside somewhere where he doesn't have to listen for a while.

There is a long pause before Itachi finally comes back around to Naruto's face, his cool hands smoothing over Naruto's whiskered cheeks as though admiring the mark of the Kyuubi, a mere ghost of a touch. Again Naruto is forcibly reminded of another who shares the same face as this man. He almost recoils away, not disgusted but hurt, because thinking of _-him-_ that way is like a physical blow.

Itachi must sense his hesitation, because he quickly pulls his hand back.

"Perhaps you're smarter than you look," Itachi says softly (_because that's just how Itachi is, all clean-lines and unobtrusive_), putting medical supplies away. It's someone else's words that Naruto hears, his teacher that he cannot reach out to right now, and this time Naruto refuses to give the words meaning and purpose. They can't, not when it is -his- brother that says them. He shoves the thought away and grins widely, all smiles and vulpine features, but no spark in his eye.

"Perhaps, or maybe I'm just suicidal."

Itachi looks him over lazily, and Naruto knows how he must look in this little room, laying down like a corpse that just happens to still be warm, with his face and limbs covered in bruises and cuts, little burns peppering him in what must have once been a great wound. _And do you suppose the Akatsuki would watch the Kyuubi heal me_, he thinks again in that place of his own, _just tear a new hole in me to watch it bleed?_ He can just imagine, someone ripping his jacket from him and taking notes while the others watch with methodical cold eyes, not seeing a little boy (_man_) who is hurt but instead a demon.

For the first time, Naruto finds himself jealous of the nine tailed fox.

"Then you are not stupid, but a fool."

Itachi finishes up, leaving with a harsh glare, not the placid expression he wore mere seconds ago. He wonders what might have caused this change in the Uchiha (_synonymous with ambitious, he thinks idly_). Feeling reckless, he needs the last laugh, any excuse to make some sort of sense out of all this.

"Just call me idiot," Naruto says, tracing the kana for words into the ceiling with his eyes. Before Itachi is given the chance to respond, he speaks again:

"Someone who looks like you does it all the time."

- - - - -

Continued...

Note: The name "Yondaime" is considered ill-fated because of the connotation of '4' in Asian cultures. His name could very easily mean "dead/dying lord Hokage" just as much as "fourth lord Hokage".


	3. Face

Title: This Place Is a Prison (3)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

- - - - -

He is and he isn't, and you don't want him to be either.

- - - - -

When he feels the gentle swaying back and forth of his legs, Naruto is not the least bit concerned. He is contented.

It's comforting to be held, no matter how indirectly or unintentionally, because it means that someone is paying attention, allowing themselves to be loving or worried. No one appreciates this more than Naruto, no matter how weak it makes him feel. He's never had someone to do it for him before (_though often he looks with envious eyes at the others_), and it's a rare treasure that he now understands. The steady beat of walking lulls him into drowsiness, feeling his stomach tickle with every slight movement before another foot falls. He's rocking back and forth a bit, and most keenly, _painfully_ aware of someone checking his injured legs as they walk. The hands are moving gingerly across sticky bandages, as though hesitant to touch, and they move more like air than something substantial.

There's something tender in those cold fingers (_or something like it, he thinks and winces at sudden pain_), but he knows all the same that this isn't kindness, just protecting an investment. He's an asset, a commodity that really has no face behind his alleged 'face value'. He's glad he can't see Itachi's face because the blank expression that would surely be there would crush him completely.

"Oi, are you just going to keep poking until you get them to bleed again?" he asks, twitching at a slightly sharper prod than before. There is no reply, so he does not bother speaking again. He'll just pretend that Itachi isn't about as responsive as a stone.

He wants it to last, this fake caring, even if the intent isn't what he needs.

They've been going for a couple of days now, in the woods and back paths of the world, surely close to whatever they have sought, because every once in a while Itachi or Kisame will look for something, a mark he supposes. Of course they do not mention to him what it is exactly that they keep such a sharp watch for (_he's not surprised, but trust is one thing he can offer; he wants others to return the favor_). No one has stopped them, no one has seen them, and Naruto wonders if he has been forgotten and not worth saving.

Jiraiya, he knows, has a penchant for leaving him to his own devices for stretches of weeks. He isn't sure whether the last couple of days of silence would constitute a visit from his inconsistent teacher. All the same, a tug in the back of his mind, a thread of anxiety, stretches out to Jiraiya every so often.

He's riding on Kisame's back (_though once or twice Itachi has carried him, but only when Kisame was too rough on his still healing legs; "Toughens him up," the shark nin had said._)

He has remained uncharacteristically quiet for the most part. After all, he's not sure what one discusses with S-class criminals other than the weather and particularly good stands for yakitori and dango. It seems very inappropriate, even though very much like _(fake)_ Naruto. Occasionally, he smiles or curses where appropriate. They are suspicious when he does not.

Naruto is more than happy to perform.

But today, today he is quiet again because he has been thinking again. He is always under the cover of a lightweight blanket, so no one ever sees the contemplative expression (_there are times that he suspects that Itachi can sense his more thoughtful moments, something in the way that there is a -straining- silence_). For the first time in two days, he has finally come around to the all-encompassing concern he holds at present, a question that cannot go unanswered.

"Are you going to kill me?"

It's a simple yes or no question, and in all likelihood it is frivolous as well, but it has to be said, because Naruto can't go on forever with no foreseen end. He knows the answer already, and perhaps the more accurate question at this time would be "how are you going to do it?" because he is curious, and anxious. (_"I've never died before, and I'm not certain I am going to like it," he reasons with himself from beneath a blanket. "I do have things to be doing, after all."_)The Akatsuki talk little, and almost never to him.

He can't blame them, he's not human after all, and most people don't talk to animals.

Peering out from under the rough blanket, he can see the clench of Kisame's jaw and feel the familiar heat of Itachi's Sharingan gaze. It's a sensitive subject and he already knows what they're thinking: _will he struggle if we say yes?_

He won't, but they don't know that, and he always has loved surprises.

Kisame recovers quickly, head jerking a little to the side. "I don't know, I guess it depends on how you behave. Any thoughts on acting up?" the shark man asks irritably. Again, Naruto gets the feeling that they understand the question better than he does himself.

"Neh, good comeback, but no. Answer the question," he says with a little more strain than before, pointedly glaring at the back of Itachi's head who is but a few feet away. The Uchiha's silence is deafening and already Naruto can see that Itachi doesn't show any signs of answering (_though if anyone knows, it would be him, written in wicked letters_). Naruto, leg twitching as he thinks to kick in frustration, sighs and slumps again.

"In a way."

So surprised at the break in the silence, Kisame stops walking and clenches his arms for a moment, making Naruto grit his teeth against the pain. With a quick dark look from Itachi, Kisame relaxes his arms and allows Naruto to take in a grateful breath. Again, for what must be the thousandth time that day, Naruto wonders why the Kyuubi is healing him so slowly.

In a way, he repeats to himself and wonders at it. He's not sure if you can be half killed or partially murdered. The phrase conjures the face of a million terrifying deaths, deaths that Naruto has _seen_ before, wandering with Jiraiya and seeing the way that every man will end, no matter how great, death being the great equalizer.

_("Remember, that even as Hokage, this is the one thing that you can never stop," Jiraiya says, looking sadly over the field of battle, somewhere between the Earth Country and Fire Country and hell. There are more men than Naruto can count, but all the same, shinobi or not, they are all undeniably dead. "You can't possibly save them all, and you will remember that, just the way Tsunade does."_

_For a moment, the smell of decay comes over him as he can only think of one thing to say._

"_Then I suppose I'll have to remember all their names, won't I?"_

_His cheekiness feels inappropriate on the field of battle.)_

"Oh," he says lamely, and squints against the sunlight to cover his own sickly face. (_He doesn't pale as well as an Uchiha; yet another thing that his rival has in his favor._)

He knows he should be offended or scared, anything, something, maybe even _everything_. He knows that these people (_criminals, murderers, kin slayers_) who have been exceedingly gentle with him are going to turn around and end his life just as quickly as they saved it. Duplicity at its best. It causes the familiar ache of disappointment and he quickly masks his bitterness with a crooked half smile.

He doesn't mind dying; that's never been a problem because it's been a long time in coming, further back than he can properly recall. He's been refuting it for years, making plans and yelling loudly so that no one would forget him (_he forgets himself sometimes_). It's been an effort for all his young life, calling on other children to play, if only for a moment, or sneaking into the Sandaime's office for a reprimand that he has made for himself.

It's the way that he's going that bothers him so much.

And it bothers him more than the man that is going to do it won't even say his name.

- - - - -

"_What kind of person is this man that you need to kill?" asks Naruto, sprawled out on the grass, staring up through the branches of the trees in the Wave Country, because he still can't seem to make his chakra stick to the tree trunk and this is very frustrating, and mostly because he has ambitions that can't be stopped by a meddlesome piece of wood. The sky is unfamiliar, and while he knows that they are not so very far from Konoha, the stars are just slightly off center._

_The question is wholly uncalled for, and he can actually _feel_ Sasuke tense from here, turned away and panting heavily. (_He doesn't have red eyes yet like his brother, but Naruto knows that the anger that lies there now is greater than any that he has seen there before. It's a secret, and he'll never tell

"_Why do you care, dobe?"_

_Naruto grins up at the stars. "Because, I need to know whom it is that I need to yell to you for. It would seem hardly fair if I ever saw him and didn't tell you. You'd have a reason to call me dobe then, teme."_

"_Hn."_

_Naruto expects this, and both clenches his fist and smiles, because it is so typical Sasuke. He knows this is his cue that now he should get upset at him and act offended for being ignored. While Naruto doesn't like being ignored, he doesn't feel like playing tonight. He's serious and he wishes that someone would finally take him seriously as well._

_He's twelve years old now, and acted more adult where he shouldn't have to than any other shinobi he has ever spoken to. (_He does not know his sensei is not so very different. Kakashi is much the same, only in a different way_.) The only other like him right now sits panting at the bottom of a tree next to him. If for no other reason, this makes Sasuke more important than anyone else._

"_I want to know, I want to know who this person is, so that I will know them and be able to tell you when I meet them," he says more softly, his voice gruff. Sasuke spares him a look, one that he's never seen before, so filled with pain and anger, that he thinks that at last Sasuke will try and kill him._

_There's the sound of a kunai being pulled up from the ground as Sasuke stands, facing the tree. Never one to be stood up, Naruto does the same, though with less anger and more clarity this time. The tree isn't an opponent so much as a tragic figure silhouetted against the full moon that both are trying to reach. It is a strange and slender shadow in the moonlight, and it paints its sharp branches across their faces._

_They run, they run harder than before up the tree trunk, trying with all that they can to reach the top, to make something actually _work_ for once. The branches hit his face and scratch at his too bright jacket, grabbing, -ripping- him, before at last with a final leap, he grabs for the very apex of the tree. Still, small hands clench onto the pine needles as he balances himself._

_Sasuke, next to him, has made it as well._

_They pant for a good while still, looking across the expanse at each other._

"_What do you say we go back, eh Naruto?" says Sasuke, looking very small in the moonlight next to him. It is unusual, because Sasuke always seemed so much bigger than him, even if he said otherwise. He doesn't like it._

"_Hm," is all he manages, trying to feel bigger than he does right now, looking over the top of the trees to where the lights of the town shine low through the sea fog that has rolled in. He cannot see Tsunami's house, where he knows that Kakashi and Sakura are right now, but he is glad that they are not here all the same. The moment is incomplete, he thinks, looking down to where Sasuke is moving much slower than he usually does._

_Halfway down, they both stop, looking at each other in the strangest way they ever had, not so much looking at a teammate or a friend, not even as an equal, but as two people that are old beyond their years, still children in body but not at all at heart. We, he thinks, are -sick- at heart, if anything at all._

"_He stole my face."_

_At first Naruto isn't sure if he heard right or if Sasuke is serious, but looking into those coal black eyes, blank as a starless sky, he sees the resolve and truth. It burns, the intensity of the gaze, and Naruto thinks to look away before firmly clenching his jaw. Sasuke, seeing that he has his audience's attention, continues, sounding more like the twelve-year-old he is than ever before Childish anger and fear melt time away from him, turn it into something else, something with monsters and nightmares just around the corner._

_Sasuke looks out of the branches, almost confusedly, before narrowing his eyes and picking at the bark between his fingers."Well, at least he might have, but he and I, we look so alike that I doubt there is much difference between us now in appearance. I...feel like he has taken something that isn't his."_

_After an awkward pause, Sasuke sighs and puts a hand to his face, feeling the ridge of his nose as though he were unfamiliar with it. He does not turn to speak anymore._

_Naruto says nothing as Sasuke slides down the trunk. He means to follow, but stays for a moment, perched against the wide branch of a pine._

_He has never met this man that Sasuke hates so much, never even considered that he may show up someday and cause problems. The idea of Sasuke killing a man is very strange to him, and if only for a moment, Naruto wishes he could see this other, to draw his own conclusions about this thief._

_He _has_ taken something, Naruto just thinks it hasn't happened yet._

- - - - -

This will be the last time that they stop, he thinks as he opens his eyes, being laid against the trunk of a tree as the sun fades over the grey sky slowly, washing out everything that was color in shades. It envelops him in a strange sort of comfort, like hiding between the roots and leaves until he is covered and safe. It's like the morning I woke up, he thinks, the first morning I woke and everything was dead.

(_He remembers that he will be too, but for some reason or another, this doesn't bother him like it did earlier_.)

Someone else out there that is special to him wakes up the same way every morning, a day closer to not existing. It gives him a sense of belonging (_but what he means is a sense of closeness_) to know that even Sasuke must feel like this sometimes. He just feels that he shouldn't be waking.

"You have that strange look on your face again."

His head snaps up to see Itachi, though the man isn't looking him in the face right now, but instead to where the last light on the sun is fleeing. Naruto almost breathes a sigh of relief, for surely he would've called him by another's name, someone important to him that has the same eyes and face.

He won't call the feeling love, because that is something else entirely, and not at all what he would mean to say.

"A lot of people say I look strange. It's just a default setting for me I guess. Or is that not what you meant?" he says with the grin he can make at any time of day. Even -that- looks strange upon his face now that his eyes don't crinkle with (_good_) humor.

Itachi is quiet, looking over his shoulder with one very red eye that looks directly into his own. He knows that with this eye, he could have his mind crushed or his thought read like an open book, but for a moment doesn't see the violence they usually hold, but a soft edge that makes the red seem to blend into the whites of his eyes. They had always seemed like sharp blades at other times. Naruto knows that Itachi must get tired sometimes, but never while others were around, surely.

"We've been told that you had chased Sasuke all the way to the border of the Fire Country before returning to Konoha, wounded and carrying Sasuke's forehead protector. Before that, you were all threats and growls," says Itachi, looking at Naruto with glazed red eyes. "But that's not what I see now. All I see now is a man, not a beast."

Naruto is surprised to note that Itachi almost sounds disappointed in him.

He tries to not be offended, because really, he ought not to. It would be silly to let something as flippant as that even rile him up in the slightest. It doesn't work very well as he thinks back to the other names he's been called and finds himself agreeing with Itachi.

"Is that not what you need me to be?" he asks, voice a little rougher. "Was I more useful to you back then? Sorry, but everyone else seemed to think I was useless that way," he says, wry smile written into the lines of his face. His whiskers, under the bitter stretch of skin, feel like scar tissue that is much too tight.

Itachi looks completely over his shoulder now, an uncertain _(not uncertain, he corrects himself, but undistinguished) _expression crossing his face. He looks as if he might say something, something that is of relevance, but Naruto knows better, and tries to shake the idea from his head.

Itachi must notice, because he becomes stone-faced and hawk-eyed again, completely unreadable to Naruto.

"It doesn't really matter to the mission. You are jinchuuriki all the same."

Naruto feels he has had quite enough of _that _word.

A human sacrifice, he says, playing with the kanji in his head to form the words, spelling out for himself how things were set up around him (_because he would most certainly not set it up that way for himself_). When people use that word, he is not a human being anymore. He is flesh for the beast, something used a device of control, a means of containing something disastrous. The familiar coils of the Kyuubi in him twists his stomach for a moment, and he thinks he might get sick soon.

He gives out one last grin for the evening, knowing that he'll be able to do it again this time tomorrow if he's still alive (_and this makes his grin grow wider_).

"Someone very important made me what I am, though I am not sure why it is that he would choose me to become such a thing." _(He knows exactly why in his heart, but his mind will not grasp it, for what man would make his own child into . . . )_

"A vessel, he has made me a vessel and inevitably every good container will someday become of no use. People break just like everything else does, especially bad ramen containers," he says, trying to take the importance of this conversation away. He is not sitting under a tree waiting for his legs to heal, he is in fact having a conversation with his good friend Sasuke and they are laughing . . .

When Naruto pretends, he feels his loss acutely, and the feeling almost makes tears come to his eyes. But above all promises to himself, Naruto will _never_ cry, not before this person who quite simply _doesn't care why_. He may look like Sasuke, but they are nothing alike, even as brothers.

He laughs instead, because he's not sure what to do, because nothing else will make sense right now. He laughs until his sides hurt and his legs ache after being jerked around violently. "I don't know why it's funny, but it is. Fate appears to have a sense of humor to go along with all that irony crap that Jiraiya likes to talk about."

Itachi gives him an alarmed look for a moment before the hard lines of his face fall slack and he seems a lot younger than what he _felt_ like to Naruto just a few seconds before.

It strikes him as sad that Itachi could only be about seven years older than him and is already an adult beyond his years, just like Naruto and Sasuke but only with something heavier, a mantle that does not drag on the ground but bends the back. He sees the face of youth in Uchiha Itachi, all delicate features that the clan possesses (_"He looks like his mother, just like Sasuke's picture of her."_) and a certain sharp grace that his eyes hold, a sword that shines, commanding attention. He has all the feline grace of Neji, but his gaze is so much richer, layered, unlike the glass-eyed Hyuuga children. There are fathoms here, and Naruto does not think he will ever be able to see the bottom.

The laughter is gone from his face, and now he feels the smiles drain out of him _(like blood beneath hooks and claws, but more painfully, like the bottom of your stomach dropping out and leaving his heart to dangle helplessly beneath his ribs.)_ He sighs heavily and slouches against the tree, staring at the dark ground that is now without light as the sun has gone down, leaving the two of them alone. The feeling of singularity he gets is all-encompassing.

And suddenly with all the coolness and headiness of water, a soft hand cups his chin, and smooths over one of the whisker scars. They are memorized with cutting glances.

"I do not understand you, Naruto-kun," says Itachi, very low in tone and empty sounding. "I do not even begin to understand what leads you to act as you do, for I have never seen someone laugh as a child and just as quickly be able to turn around and accept that they are going to die."

Itachi's voice is smooth, and quiet, contemplative, and he misses it the moment he stops. Looking up, Naruto can even see the Sharingan in his eyes, glowing like dim embers. He doesn't dare breathe, because someone is actually touching him, not because they need to but because they choose to.

Kisame, nearby lights a campfire and casts shadows upon the two of them that dance and distort behind them. It is not unlike having an unwelcome audience.

Itachi quickly drops his hand away and picks up Naruto carefully, minding still bandaged and ailing legs before sitting him down close to where they are setting up the equipment for their last night out.

Sparing a glance at Itachi, Naruto's throat clenches hard as he turns away, eyes tearing up unbidden and unwanted with disappointment and pain.

Itachi is not Sasuke, and can never be Sasuke. Unlike Sasuke, Itachi does not understand him, does not see the value of his being, and does not hold him to any sort of standard. They are perfect strangers, talking about things neither one of them will remember a few days from now. (_Or at least Itachi won't; Naruto remembers everything, down to what color the stones were beneath his hands, cold and smooth underneath his thumb and finger_.) And despite that, Naruto still sees something of a friend in that chill marble appearance.

Itachi _has_ stolen Sasuke's face.

And he has stolen something that is left of him, something that is unforgivable. It's not his heart or his mind, it's something deeper in, a small voice that speaks when it's quiet. Itachi has stolen part of that which remains of the real Naruto.

And this, he can never forgive.

(_Because now he has nothing for himself_.)

- - - - -

Continued

A/N: This took forever to write because I was trying to capture the scene less in words. I don't think words do justice to emotions or thoughts. I apologize to anyone that thinks my style of writing is disjointed, because that's simply how I write in free form.

Reviewers so far, thank you so much, I appreciate your words and it heartens me to know that someone is reading. I like hearing other people's thoughts on a situation or characterization. I certainly hope you enjoy or are able to see how I present Itachi and Naruto . . . without turning into an AU OMG OOC queen.

Edited 8/14/06


	4. Similar

Title: This Place Is A Prison (4)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Characters: Naruto, Itachi

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. ItachiNaruto.)

- - - - -

_Amidst the comparison and proportions  
you're screaming yourself mad. _

_This is what you wanted, right?_

Dir en Grey, "Merciless Cult"  
- - - - -

_He's sitting by himself again, swinging gently in the crisp breeze as it crosses the now very empty playground. The leaves skitter at his feet, and it sounds like nervous chatter rolling through the school yard. The browning foliage seems to click hollowly next each other, the birds leaving the branches to winter. _

_There were people here, only a few minutes ago, he thinks and absently rubs a whiskered cheek. He won't let it bother him that they left sooner than usual or that tonight is the autumn matsuri and everyone but him will be there._

_This year, Naruto will be seven years old, and he has convinced himself that it's not him that they are leaving. He knows that most of those children have parents and friends other than him, and that he does not. It drops like a stone in his stomach, but he is in the habit of lying to himself now, just like the adults do._

_This year, Naruto will be seven years old, and more than capable of trying to make himself happy. He has never stopped trying to see other people, but he knows that he is always welcome in his own company, no matter how lonely that might sound. He is not looking for a way into everyone else's good graces._

_This year, Naruto will be seven years old, and he's already realized that he never _will_ be happy as long as he's chasing shadows. People are very real, and he has found that there is more than one way to draw attention to himself, no matter how much it makes people annoyed with him. Naruto will take annoyance over silent Sunday afternoons. Besides, the punishments give him something to do other than throw shuriken at the tree trunks, even if it is with boring old Iruka-sensei._

_He brushes his cheek again, trying to put a name to the one that makes things so difficult for him, trying to imagine up a face that is both terrifying and familiar that surely is the cause of all his problems. It can't be him, _can't be_ because children are only what adults make them to be. He is measured by what someone older than him _wants_ him to be. Vaguely, he realizes that he actually must be dead then._

_What a game, he thinks, to be dead, to not be seen. (_Which he believes he'll prefer given a little time, because he will be out of sight and out of mind, and that is far better than anything he could possibly wish of people. He loves the contact, but it will one day do him a disservice, and he has not the wisdom to see that yet._) It a rather ironic thought, because tonight during the autumn matsuri is his birthday. He thinks he might be a bit ahead of himself, only being seven years old. _

_Then again, Naruto didn't see that many people grow old in Konoha. It was a rarity, an oddity, and something to be cherished in a village of shinobi, where death was not around the corner, but an inherent part of the body, something like the heart or soul, only emptier and coiled like a snake. It freed itself whenever it seemed the most unwelcome, the most troublesome._

_Without meaning to, he reaches for his stomach and clenches little quartermoon fingernails into the skin there._

"_Hey."_

_He startles, looking up with bright blue eyes to across the playground, where a small dark boy is leaned against a wall, looking every bit as alone as Naruto felt now. The boy is lean (_much like himself, who doesn't eat all that often as a child_) and has small petite hands that stand out starkly against the black of his shirt. He's not unlike a china doll, but from where he sits, Naruto can see the scars and scratches that shuriken training cause, and he feels a weight that seems heavy as his own._

_Gravity pulls stronger on the unfortunate._

"_...Hey," he says quietly, hesitantly. He's heard of this boy, seen him sitting in class and out by the pier. He vaguely recalls the thought of blood on the tatami floors, (_the smell hits him in a memory that isn't his, something sulphuric and sweet_) and he remembers that this boy is a child of a massacre. (_Naruto is too, but he doesn't know that now; he wishes he had, but is glad that he didn't in hindsight._) Uchiha Sasuke, the genius, the number one student in the genin class and quite possibly the number one loner. He's jealous for a minute, but his face quickly changes from one of disdain to neutral. _

_He's lonely, and Sasuke is here and real, and very much like him, something that matters more than anything to him._

"_Don't you have anyone who will go to the matsuri with you?" he asks, trying to not look how he feels, which is very very bitter._

_Sasuke's face is a blank, something that Naruto thinks makes a very poor mask, because a blank face almost always implies being upset or irritated. He knows that Sasuke is offended, but says nothing despite his desire to do so. He is filled with childish spite, the desire to make someone feel worse than he does, but he's good at keeping secrets, and he needs this one, even if he doesn't know why._

_Naruto, inherently, is not a spiteful child._

"_No." There is a pause, and Sasuke's face quickly turns from impenetrable to solemn. "At least not anyone that I want to go with." There's a promise behind those words, a dual meaning that Sasuke must think that Naruto will not discover, but Naruto has said the same lie to himself, and is comforted that he is not the only one who feels the need for double meanings, in smiles or otherwise._

"_Hn, well, that makes two of us," he says resolutely, crossing his arms and balancing on the swing. "Today's my birthday, and if no one is going to bother to remember it, I'm not going to bother to spend time with them." He sniffs a little, looking over to where the daiko have begun to beat steadily, announcing the beginning of the festivities. "If they think that their festival is more important than me, then fine! They can have their fireworks and food."_

_Sasuke looks at his sideways, eyebrows furrowed a little."That's because today is the anniversary of the Kyuubi's defeat."_

"_I know."_

"_Then why are you surprised that no one remembers your birthday?"_

"_I'm not."_

He never has been

_Stopping with that little declaration, Naruto turns back to the Hokage monument and makes a quick face at the sculptures, imagining how each would react. Shodaime-sama would be indignant, he can tell by the way he looks so stiff, and Niidaime-sama would probably frown and shake his head, but hiding a smile, not at all like his elder brother. Sandaime (_as Naruto already knows_) would pull his Hokage hat down to cover his face, smiling at the childishness, and Yondaime, while Yondaime looks decisively unpleasant on the mountainside, Naruto gets the feeling that he would make faces back..._

_He doesn't know if he's gotten the first two right, but he knows that he is right about the fourth lord. Giving a quick glance, he can see the lines of laughter that would be there, a quick wit, and an easy smile (_not practiced like his own_). It's a shame that he's dead, he thinks disconsolately, eyes still able to conjure up the image of chrysanthemums floating on the surface of a still stream. (_It doesn't run because time and his memory are two very different things. One is stagnant and the other one is always running through his mind_) He would likely be a lot of fun._

_He turns to see Sasuke, looking over the tops of the houses to the Uchiha district. The roof tiles look grey and dead in the evening light, cold enough for frost and mist to swirl around. The look is reflected in Sasuke's dark eyes, very glassy and tired looking from where he is standing. With an unrecognizable flash of empathy, Naruto's heart contracts harshly, knowing that no one will be waiting for Sasuke when he goes home as well._

_He knows he ought to be ashamed for feeling relieved to not be the only one. There has been so little kindness in the world, and Naruto feels lonely to even consider being singular amongst many. _

"_Ne, you're here, and that counts for something, right?" he says with a grin, sitting up from the swing set and rushing over to Sasuke. They do not touch at first, because no matter how young they are, or how innocent they may be considered, there is something in the brush of a hand that seems out of place; a foreign invasion of their space. But he smiles, just as he always does, only this time with more feeling, pulling Sasuke's thin arm toward the swings again, breaching that unspoken agreement, if only for a moment. Before Sasuke can protest, he immediately starts running his mouth off again. _

"_I know that it's not because it's my birthday, or even because you have no one to go to matsuri with, but that's okay!" he says in a rush, barely pausing for breath. " I'm...I'm glad you're here at all, even if it was on accident." he says, looking at Sasuke with wide eyes (much too wide for his face and too expressive), waiting to see his reaction._

_At first, the boy stands still, looking at Naruto with sharp black eyes, little dark points baring into his face before relaxing and letting Naruto pull him over to the swing set. Sasuke doesn't visibly smile, Naruto knows he never would with him there, but he feels it. Sitting next to each other, they both move back and forth, trying to reach as high as they can without flying out of their seats (_but coming perilously close several times

_The swing set creaks under their combined force, but never drops them (_though Sasuke makes it a point to soothsay that it will, expecting the worst out of everything_.) They don't say much to each other, save pass a glance to one another, or make a remark about the other. That's all right though, because Naruto knows that he does not have unusually large ears (_"Are there elephants hiding behind your hair?"_) and Sasuke knows that he doesn't have big narrow feet. ("_They're like frog's feet! I bet they're cold, too."

_They continue until it grows dark and the matsuri lights are turned off. Neither have parents (_anymore_), so they don't stop, as children often do. They keep going until the dawn breaks over them and they are tired and unable to move anymore. Neither one admits to this, determined to be the strongest to the very end._

_They're both strays, and they're both lonely, and that's all that really matters._

- - - - -

"I don't like being by myself," he catches himself saying, looking into the dying embers of the fire that had so boldly lit the night up just hours before. It is in the earliest hours of the morning, and the sun is yet a ways off, shining day onto some other person (_and he wonders if they have the same gey sky that he has grown used to as well_). Kisame is asleep and does not hear, body up against a tree trunk as he tentatively holds his sword in his hands. Itachi might be awake, but at the same time he might not; Naruto can't tell because the shadows of a rice hat keep his face obscured, white linen strips waving like funeral wrapping over the pale skin.

They aren't afraid that he'll run away because all three of them know he can't. It angers him, and he resents the Kyuubi for it (_though he can't say why, having always taken advantage of his quick recoveries_). To make up for it, he will have to run double time when he feels able to do so again. He is not so reluctant to leave anymore. Naruto is certain that he'd rather not stay at all. Only silence responds to his musings.

"I'm used to it," he says to himself, because already a million arguments are raising up in the back of his head, "but I don't have to like it."

He looks up, but there is no visible moon tonight, and he suspects he slept through its journey across the sky. He wants to see it, so that he can know how long he has been here. Naruto finds he cannot keep the days straight anymore. He sleeps so often that it wouldn't matter much if he did.

He keeps the darkest part of the night to himself, watching the branches of the oak tree above him with keen animal vision. He used to share the night watches with another, but that was long ago and the laughter from then has already faded into dull greys and pastel. The vividness of the memory (_dream?_) has left him long ago, though at times he thinks he might still be able to hear the murmur of soft voices and subtle insults.

Irritably, he bites his lip, trying to stop that frustrating tightening in his throat that tells him he might yet cry. He won't cry again, not while he is here and with _them_, not when he has already been so close to it only the evening before. There is nothing that Naruto can think of to cry -about-, at least nothing that is really relevant. He is saving his tears for something important, something that is in the not-so-distant future.

It strikes him as strangely humorous that this may be the last night that he will ever be able to even think about old memories, and it irks him that he can't seem to recall them more clearly, more like looking through a dusty window to find that there is nothing on the other side or old photos that don't quite feel the same as when they were taken. Naruto can recall how he's supposed to feel, but it isn't right, just slightly off colored from those moments.

He wants to be able to enjoy this night, to feel for a last time before he might (_be killed, be murdered, be knocked off, be sleeping, be withering, be forgetting, be forgotten_) be dying. The familiar tickle in his stomach picks up, twisting and making Naruto cringe and fall over from his sitting position. With something resembling a grin, he acknowledges that this feeling probably isn't the greatest of signs. This is the first time he's felt the Kyuubi even move since the burning house, only hearing a deafening silence in the recesses of his mind.

It is primal, the tearing in his stomach, and he vaguely pictures a great predator stalking the edges of his cage, simply waiting to break against it; wild birds beat against the walls of their cages, so what's to say the Kyuubi wont do the same? Naruto would cringe if his pride wasn't already wounded, but he's been afraid of this happening for years. (_And make no mistake, he can recall every person who told him it might happen_.)

_You die so easily._

Yes, I do, he thinks miserably, looking into the embers again with half lidded eyes, glazed and still as sweat pours off his brow. He can only imagine what he looks like, sprawled on the ground with dirty black blooded bandages that pull at his skin and a tattered black cloak that once lay across his shoulders wrapped like chains around his arms.

_("It's sad," he says, looking at the dead sparrow on the ground, so rigid in death that it looks like a mere touch would shatter it. "You don't suppose they fly in the afterlife, do you? I mean, it wouldn't be very fair if only people had something to look forward to, would it?"_

_His genin team looks at him strangely, mostly Sakura who looks torn between some unspoken grief and anger (_he can't imagine why_), but Kakashi gives him such a powerful look with that one eye that he knows that he's hit another nerve in his sensei. It's a melancholy look, reflective, and morbid, and something else; Naruto won't call him on it, because some things just aren't meant to be said.)_

A twig catches on his bandages and poke sharply at the tender burns, and he draws in a sharp breath, trying not to speak. He doesn't want them to wake, to see him in an even more pitiful way than they have before. He's not afraid to die, he just doesn't think he could stand someone see him tear himself up from the inside out.

Whether or not he'd admit it out loud, the Kyuubi is an embarrassment to him, something that separates him from everyone else.

But Itachi's awake, he knows it because there is nothing quite like the feeling of red eyes looking him over and trying to disassemble him where he lies. He doesn't see why he is so desperate to hide this, suffice to say he feels slightly violated that -anyone- is awake right now. There is the briefest of stirs and he can almost see Itachi, standing and analyzing with a calculative gaze, choosing the best course of action that requires as -little- action as possible. He takes a while before kneeling down next to Naruto and rolling him over onto his back. His hands are lukewarm and his expression is completely blank.

In that respect, Itachi and Sasuke are nothing alike. Sasuke _feels_ more than he should (_or did at one point_), and this makes him weaker than his older brother. Naruto wonder sometimes if Itachi feels at all.

"You have been rolling around a lot in the last few minutes." says Itachi, running cold fingers over Naruto's forehead, removing the Konoha leaf and replacing it with cool skin. "Are we to assume that something is wrong?"

Naruto clenches his teeth, feeling very exposed all of sudden and fights the primal instinct to try and escape. The feeling of his stomach twisting with the feeling of Itachi putting cold hands to his forehead is too much and he can feel the kyuubi leak around the seal in anger. If nothing else, Kyuubi will always insist on protecting Naruto because only he will take the life of the jinchuriki, and what a day it will be.

Naruto realizes that the day isn't far away.

"Ne, Itachi-san, I'm just not feeling very well tonight. And what's with the royal 'we'?" he says with another reluctant half grin, and tries to ignore that Itachi is very close and looks very different in the shadows when he can't see those aristocratic features. The similarity, where he was different only moments before, comes to him full force and he can almost see that face sitting across from the swing set with him in a park over eight years ago. "You act like you're afraid to do anything independently of Kisame."

Itachi is quiet as ever, but Naruto isn't stupid enough to think that he isn't observant. Another twinge from his seal sends him cringing and reaching to clutch his stomach. He doesn't before Itachi has his arms to his sides again and he pulls up the black shirt that Naruto wears to expose his abdomen, the seal dark and deeply rooted onto his skin.

"Then it is the Kyuubi that bothers you tonight." A deliberate change of subject.

_How weak you are, to let him touch you._

"Nice way to avoid the question. Do you guys do that all the time, or just with me?" This he says much more quietly, not trying to be heard but not necessarily trying -not- to be heard. He believes it to be a valid question; who refers to themself as a group, a single entity when all think so independently? The Kyuubi will never say 'us', because that would imply that Naruto somehow was connected to the fox demon, and the Kyuubi is far above such a disgrace. But Kisame and Itachi are also as different as two people could be.

Feeling self-conscious of the seal, he tries to reach his arms up to pull the shirt back down where no one can look. It's like a stain that he can't get rid of and every person that looks at it somehow knows something that is Naruto's alone to carry. (_He can't stand that they look upon the blood seal that cost someone's life and a small boy's future, because they are not the same person, because Naruto has somehow become something other than a mother's son or a father's child.)_

"Be still."

At first Naruto is surprised by the command and looks at Itachi incredulously, but he soon recovers and begins to ignore it, feeling that ache he had been fighting in his throat all over again.

"Don't look," he says resolutely. "It's certainly not your body to look at," he says in a calm (_ barely contained anger coloring his_) voice, lifting his arms again, and just as quickly having them put back down at his sides by swift hands. Naruto quickly grows frustrated with what Itachi must consider a game, and tries to wriggle free of the grasp. It's not cold anymore, but it is not soft or kind, not the way he wishes it would be like it was before.

_How worthless, to not be able to fight despite all your strength_.

The whispers are maddening, and he's scrambling now with a strength borne of anger. He is grasping at, strangling the dead leaves with anxious hands, because he is vulnerable and depressed and has no smiles for Itachi now. There is one thing that Naruto can't stand, and that is being stared at like an animal behind glass.

Itachi doesn't speak, he just acts.

With a quick jerk, Itachi brings Naruto's arms down for a last time, and Naruto does not try and raise them. They hurt, too bruised to be of much use, and his legs burn, and more than anything, he would like to know if Itachi is going to kill him now.

Itachi gives Naruto a condescending look before releasing his wrists and smoothing out the cloak that Naruto is tangled in. "I thought you were going to hurt yourself again."

He can't remember hurting himself (_on purpose_).

Naruto can imagine the smile that he would put on if he had the energy to do it. Fighting the wrestling of his stomach and the grip on his wrists exhausts him and his breath comes in heavy gasps. If Kisame was not awake before, he is positive that he is now. If nothing else is a success, than at least Itachi is not referring to himself in groups anymore.

Itachi moves softly again, checking Naruto's eyes with their penetrating glare before bringing his attention to the seal (_now softened at its edges as the kyuubi recedes from his mind_). He is silent again, the way that Naruto has on one hand grown used to, and on the other, would not like to experience again. The way he sounds when he speaks is too much for him, dark and sibilant, both different and the same as another person he knows. (_No names, no names, because names cause conflict in his ability to keep from recalling things._)

Naruto shivers as an elegant scarred finger traced the spiral of the seal, tracing out the kanji of the seasons that surround it, as if to memorize. There is a glint in Itachi's eye that Naruto has never seen before, something innately mortal and human in nature that follows all the way to the center of the seal.

Naruto is uncertain whether to be relieved or horrified to know that Itachi is capable of showing signs of rapt attention, signs of a keen interest that may imply something else.

_Keep him away._

_("The soul is in the stomach," says an unfamiliar voice, a distant voice. Naruto cannot tell who it is because he cannot see, because his eyes are closed and he feels that he ought to be asleep and a lot smaller than he is. Everything is cramped around him yet warm and fitting. He is in the epitome of irony and he isn't sure what to think of it._

"_That's why the samurai commit seppuku, the tanto to the belly is to reach the soul within, or so said Sakumo while he was still around. And that is the nature of the jutsu."_

_He's missed something important and he doesn't like it, for something in the way the man talks is crucial to him, an integral part of his body. He knows he should know who is talking, but he isn't sure where he is, or if he's even properly existing. _

_After all, do unborn children really hear or do they dream?) _

With a rapid blink, he snaps back to reality, looking at Itachi with eyes that don't actually look at Itachi, but straight through him at something else. At first, Itachi looks thoughtful, trying to ascertain Naruto's expression for a moment before his face smooths out again. He holds Naruto up against his lithe body, feeling the frantic heartbeat and fluttering eyelashes against the silk of the red clouds on his cloak. Naruto takes this all in with confusion.

"Children that are alone often grow up without trusting people. And if they ever do trust someone, it will only be that one person." Itachi pauses in his lecture, and Naruto sighs, trying not to think about it too much, and looks up at Itachi, waiting for the rest. He knows where this is going but can't find it in himself to rise to the occasion."But that one person did betray you."

Naruto is quiet.

"We heard Sasuke tried to kill you."

Again, there is quiet, though Naruto can feel himself shrink. The Kyuubi has left again, leaving a vague ache in his head and a tiredness he hasn't known in awhile.

"No smiles tonight, Naruto-kun?" The slight mocking tone of Itachi's voice grates on his nerves, but he does not allow the Uchiha to bait him into anger. (_But he is already -very- angry, gritting teeth, biting nails, muscles tense...he is a veritable bomb, waiting to explode_.) Instead, Naruto does not answer, but tries to smile. Give the people what they want, and they'll never have anything to ask him for.

Itachi holds him for a while, but rather than comfort him, he keeps a hand over the seal that Naruto tries so desperately to hide, looking over the seals with observant glances, probably cataloguing (_and what a good librarian Itachi could be_) everything he sees. Naruto expects nothing less, no matter how frustrating it is. He knows the Kyuubi will always come first in the minds of others because the Kyuubi is powerful, and he...well, he is Naruto, and no amount of training can give himt he infamy that the demon fox carries.

And Naruto knows that above all things that are in this world, Sasuke and Itachi are drawn to power and not to weak little children. Their clan is one of legend, something that there are whispers of even in the farthest countries, and that he is just an urchin that decided to become a ninja. He also knows that he will spend the rest of his life trying to make up that deficit, to be equal with his rival and his enemy.

Suddenly, swinging in the park doesn't seem like something that really happened at all. He's even afraid that he might have made it up, some grand delusion that he might turn to when he feels it necessary. Despite the weariness that he feels, he forces another smile and can see Sasuke's youthful face on the playground eight years ago in Itachi's face without the shadows.

- - - - -

They've all settled back down to sleep, Naruto kept very close to Itachi in a sleeping roll, listening to the sound of his breathing to ensure his safety (_for them or for him, it isn't ever specified_.). Naruto watches from between the folds of his blanket, counting the number of times Itachi inhales and exhales. They both know neither one is asleep, but Naruto only acknowledges it by changing the rhythm of his breathing; Itachi is metronome like. Naruto's quite certain he could set a clock to the deep, even breaths.

It is probably not on purpose.

In that respect, Naruto can see a huge difference between Itachi and Sasuke. Sasuke, quite simply, would deliberately let on to him that the Uchiha -knew- that Naruto was awake, giving jibes and hints that Naruto wasn't fooling anybody. Naruto doesn't mind as much, because while tearing down everything about him, he is building it back up again by acknowledging each other. For every thing destroyed, something new is (supposed) to come back from the ashes.

Itachi simply tears it down without saying a word. He does not let Naruto know that -he- knows that the boy is awake. He instead ignores it, secure in his own skill to deal with Naruto should the need arise. (_And it is likely that Itachi suspects it might; he has already averted one attempted self-destruction for the night_.)

Naruto resents it, deeply and truly, feeling the desire to lash out but unable to. It shows in his heavier breathing, the way he bites his lip just so, and he's not exactly sure how to stop these visible signs.

It is probable that Itachi might also think Naruto not worth his notice because of his lack of skills. He tries to not let it bother him too much, because really, Itachi is a genius among children and adolescents, the perfect example of the shinobi ideal.

In this respect, Naruto hates Itachi, -hates- him because he is -not- Sasuke but capable of acting like him, fighting like him, and speaking like him when necessary. It strikes Naruto as very sad that Itachi is an actor of magnificent talent but no calling whatsoever. (_"Wrong career," he thinks, eying one elegant hand from beneath the blanket. Itachi's physique is perfect for the stage. It is a shame that he is not content to pretend to be other people in jest and art._)

If nothing else, Naruto can depend on Sasuke to be transparent. And even that, he fears, will not last very long.

They are nothing alike, he concludes, ignoring the family resemblance and blase attitude. They are nothing alike, because one is fire and the other is ice, always negating each other. One cannot survive with the other around.

Glancing at one gleaming eye in the embers, Naruto shakes his head, covering his own eyes with one scarred hand.

They're nothing alike, he reminds himself.

Nothing at all.

- - - - -

Continued

Author's Notes: Urgh, I'm not too fond of this chapter, and I might expand it later as there's a part of it I'd like to go over again.

But as a whole, I've been so happy with the reviews I've been getting, and it helps me judge how to stay in character which I fear might have strayed a bit in this chapter.

Edit 9/25: Massive additions to the chapter, general editing, expansion of previously existing topics.


	5. Emotion

Title: This Place Is A Prison (5)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. ItachiNaruto.)

- - - - -

_Everyone lives their lives, keeping these feelings they can't find the words for._  
Hamasaki Ayumi, "No Way to Say"

- - - - -

"_The first thing you must realize is that everyone is vulnerable to emotion."_

_He can hear the words in his head, mellow and solemn, and sinking like small coins to the bottom of a pond. He listens closely, like a good student ought to, careful not to miss anything. Jiraiya isn' t often serious, so now Naruto knows that something precious is about to be imparted to him. It is a gift to receive another man's wisdom rather than learn from one's own folly. (_He has not been very quick in learning this either. At times, he wonders if he is not the fool spoken of in the proverb. His luck can be terrible

_He looks over to see his teacher with a small cup of sake balanced on his fingers. It is something that he has seen on a fairly regular basis during his training, giving up most pretenses of anger at the idea of drinking instead of training. There is very little that keeps Jiraiya from becoming restless and simply sending him away for independent study. But next to the toughened fingers and scarred hands, the cup seems very small and very fragile, looking very misplaced between the big fingers. Jiraiya almost seems depressed, looking down with speculative whisky eyes. The cup is empty, but the aging sannin doesn't seem to care. Or rather, Naruto corrects himself, he is choosing to ignore it, which isn't at all uncommon._

"_Happiness, sorrow, anger, love, hate, jealousy, there is no man that doesn't feel these." ('_Including yourself?' Naruto asks this quiet man in the spaces between his regular thought_.) "It may not show, but it is there, sleeping like a fire underneath the mountains."_

_For a moment, Naruto isn't sure whether to laugh or not, because surely this will end in a joke like these conversations usually do. He doesn't know if it's because Jiraiya thinks him too young or too immature, because the old teacher is always covering up the moral of the story, like it were something beyond him. He knows it's there, but its disguised with lewd jokes and cheap liquor and he's not sure if he can find it or if he should. He would like to, but something tells him not. (_No one likes having their memories thrown back to them

_Naruto thinks it may be because Jiraiya doesn't want to tell him the truth. Jiraiya is secretive, and he has never been fully honest with Naruto, no matter what the subject. There are wires running between the past and present that Jiraiya acts like letting others know will launch some sort of trap, a pageantry of pain that will hurt him most of all. It is at times like this that Naruto thinks that Jiraiya is a very selfish man. But Naruto knows better. He's always known the truth. He waits for the punch line as Jiraiya stares into the bottom of his (_empty_) drink, as if waiting for it to suddenly be full again._

_The punch line never comes._

"_You must think me a senile old fool, ne, Naruto-kun?" the sannin says with a wry look, pouring another cup of sake for himself, looking out the wood panel window of the tea house where the design paints streaks of afternoon gold on their table. The maple leaves are red and bright in the late day sun, waving lazily between the slats. He is at peace in a place like this, a place where he doesn't hear the voices as much as he is used to. They are far from Konoha and everything that his existence stands for. _

_When Jiraiya puts the sake bottle into his hand a refills his cup, only to down it as quickly as it came, the stoneware of the teahouse clatters next to Naruto's clutched hands. Startled, Naruto looks back into the dark eyes of his teacher, wary. Jiraiya is sober, and this seriousness is unlike him. (_And sobriety doesn't fit him, like wearing someone else's old clothes, worn out at the edges and stretched thin across a body that is too big for the weave. Naruto almost finds him wishing for the colorful women that Jiraiya seems to think makes him happy.

"_You're probably right, you know. Old men like me say a lot of things we don't mean, ramble on about things that we wished we had done differently, or people we should have saved." He hums thoughtfully (_Naruto winces_). "But if only for a moment, humor me, as an adult, and not a teacher or 'ero-sennin'." he says with a chuckle, downing another cup of liquor._

"_You look a lot like _him_ and it makes it hard to talk to you. I sometimes forget I'm sitting with someone else." There is no question as to who 'he' is. Naruto always knows when Jiraiya is talking with someone else and not him when the aging man is drunk. There is a change, a sudden comradery that he has never had with his teacher. Naruto doesn't resent it, but it is very lonely to be alone in company._

_There is a pregnant silence before Jiraiya turns to face Naruto completely._

"_You must always remember that you will someday feel these things and recognize them for what they are." (_Naruto becomes a little bitter as an image of Sasuke floats through his mind. He ignores it and pretends it's something else_.) "You will one day feel strongly, passionately about something or someone. And you will name this feeling with a common term that people label it with."_

_With a glance to the window, Jiraiya sets down his sake cup and steeples his fingers, the sunlight of the afternoon turning his white hair a bright yellow, like some deific flame._

" _One will call it love and another will call it hate, but you must no that there's really no difference at all."_

_Naruto, still for just a moment, looks at Jiraiya before saying in a quiet voice, "I already know." And with another glance outside, he says, "But I don't suppose it really matters."_

_Neither one speaks for a long time after._

_- - - - -_

"I already know."

It is his own voice that wakes him, scratchy and dry, and he sits up, and feeling slightly dazed, grabs for his stomach. When he thinks it strange that he can't move his body, he looks down to see, with some bitterness, that this is because he is bound up by red cords and rice paper talismans. They tear and scratch at his skin, leaving angry red marks that, if looked at in the right angle, look like broken little butterflies. He's become the demon from the old legends, being led to the end by the powerful magician. It's always the same ending in every story too.

(_"Naruto, if you don't listen to the story, how will you know how it ends?" asks Iruka, scratching at his brow, looking slightly cross with the small child in front of him, tan hands folded together and youthful legs crouched down._

"_I don't want to hear how the demon is killed," says Naruto, looking at a small dead leaf on the ground. Naruto is eight years old, and he has decided that he is too old for fables with (_un_)happy endings. "I don't want to hear how -anything- dies.") _

It is chill on the outside of his blanket, as though frost were biting it's way into him and seeking out his warm blood. Looking up, he realizes that it is midday, the sun beating down on the empty branches of trees, casting harsh skeletal shadows on the frosted earth. He has slept for much too long, later than he would've allowed himself. With a small smirk, Naruto congratulates the Akatsuki for moving so quickly with out disturbing him. At least they seem to have some consideration for sleeping habits.

"Good morning, Naruto-kun."

With a quick glance, Naruto looks over into the shadows of one tree to see the unusually tall form of Kisame, black and red robe blending at the edges into the darkness. The place fits him, hiding his blue pallor from the dry air.

Kisame swaggers toward him a little bit, eying the bound arms little closer than Naruto cares for. He feels a little like an item on display, look, don't touch. "The Kyuubi healed your wounds last night, or did you forget your little stunt?"

Naruto looks away, embarrassed and entirely certain that Kisame is absolutely full of himself. He can remember with perfect clarity how weak he had been, so easily overpowered by the slim Uchiha and the will of the Kyuubi. Naruto would like to think of himself as strong, but always, _always_, something appears to prove him wrong. (_"I have to bring you back to Konoha," he says, looking at Sasuke from a great distance. But something tells him that this is not his Sasuke. The eyes aren't the same, never the same because the Sasuke he knows has dark melancholy eyes, not hard yellow ones._)

Fate, Naruto has decided, has a sick sense of fairness.

"So until we reach our destination, we decided to bind you up properly. Name yourself lucky," says, Kisame, grinning widely and dangerously (_this induces an indignant snort from Naruto_), "because I believed we should just put you to sleep and keep you down. Itachi-san is very generous to you this day."

Speak the devils' name and he will come to you, Naruto thinks, looking to his side where Itachi now walks toward the two, his rice hat pulled low over his face and the bell tassel jingling hollow and dead in the crisp air. For this, Naruto is more grateful than anything. Naruto has been afraid of dying staring into Sharingan eyes for some time now. (_He knows since when, but he doesn't speak of that time and he doesn't like it when anyone else does either because if he thinks it's not real, surely it must be true._)

"The area is secure," the tall Uchiha says simply, looking to Kisame and deliberately ignoring the blue-eyes that follow him. "We must go quickly if we are to arrive without event." The voice is cold, and Naruto shivers. Giving him a glace, Itachi turns toward Naruto, lifting him by the arms to loop around his neck. There is hidden strength lying in those arms, no matter how weak Naruto may seem right now. He is a predator by nature, albeit a gentle one, and this is an opportunity that Naruto ought to take.

If Naruto were a proper ninja, he would try to strangle Itachi right now.

But nothing happens (_or rather, Naruto does nothing_), and Kisame follows behind Itachi, as if the thought had never crossed Naruto's mind. However, Naruto catches something that he knows he wasn't supposed to see.

Itachi looks at him, eyes dark and the color of midnight, and his lips form a bitter smile that say a million things to him, things that he ought to be able to acknowledge and understand, but none of it makes sense amidst all his thoughts right now, as though a cloud was obscuring everything that ought to matter. Naruto knows Itachi saw him look, and gives him a slight boost onto his back where he can be carried more easily. Now they don't have to look at each other.

Then again, the look may have been deliberate. Naruto will never see what Itachi doesn't want him to.

- - - - -

He doesn't remember much about where they go or how they get there, but he thinks he might prefer it that way. While he ought to memorize where they are, he gets the feeling he would forget anyway (_just like Sasuke thought so long ago in the forest_). Suffice to say that at one moment he is warm in the sunlight and resting on Itachi's shoulders with his arms hanging limply over the Uchiha's chest, and at the next moment it is dark and cold and forbidding. The subterranean landscape fades from black to grey on occasion, but never enough for Naruto to make anything of the shadows. They twist and smile in the dark, and Naruto gets the feeling that it may be for him.

He swallows, and tries to calm himself.

It's all very familiar, the kanji written on the walls, the forbidden seal on the gateway and the great torii gate, red in his vision. He knows that he's been here, or that he will be (_read as would've_) at some time. The feel of being here at this point in time leaves him confused and nauseated, and it is as if there is a wrongness in his presence and that the stone and damp of the walls are pressing against him. Irritably, he pulls lightly at the cords around his arms, feeling the sting of chakra and older aura around it.

"You are in the Akatsuki's domain now, if that was what you were wondering."

Naruto at first is startled that Itachi has broken the comfortable silence, but soon smiles toothily, glad that his expression is hidden in the folds of the black cloak and Itachi's black hair. (_Itachi fits in the darkness, he moves well in it, and Naruto tries to not remember that Sasuke shares the same coloring._)

"A little dark and dreary, isn't it? Did you just not have the budget for some decent lamps, or does it just go with the whole secret organization rule?"

Naruto feels the smile even if he can't see it on Itachi's face.

"Is it a problem, Naruto-kun?" asks Itachi, as aloof as ever. Naruto tries not to think how many times Itachi might have carried Sasuke on his back and answer silly questions.

"Well, it is cold," he says in a bark of laughter, trying to sound sincere. He knows Itachi is listening to him by the way he tilts his head to where Naruto can see the shell of one white ear, strands of hair looking like cracks in a porcelain doll, breaking and chipping the paleness.

"Whatever works is fine." says the Uchiha, weaving his way down the pathway with ease. Itachi must have walked these halls several times over the years. There is amusement in his voice, as if it's funny that the weather is more important than an impending death. Obviously, Itachi is beginning to understand Naruto, and this bothers the blonde (_because there is only one who should be of a like mind to his own_).

There are other Akatsuki, and Naruto realizes that they are about as surprised to see Itachi as Naruto was surprised to wake up after supposedly burning to death (_he most certainly hadn't planned on being alive, but it was a unfortunate surprise_). Jiraiya's information on the Akatsuki not striking for three years suddenly seems a little more sound than it did three days ago. They seen as unprepared as he is.

"Itachi-san, you're here awfully early, un," says a noisier voice from down the hall, melodious and light like the kabuki players, and Naruto can't help but stare as he sees the glint of straw wheat hair drawn high and as bright as ever in the bleak tunnel. Naruto wonders if his own hair might do that as well if he grew it out.

The figure moves gracefully, not watching where he steps (_and this he knows because the delicate foot lands in a puddle from the water on the ceiling_), a bead of clay rolling in his hands carefully, sculpting every few seconds into something else. "I get the feeling Itachi-san has found his jinchuuriki, un. It seems he's ahead of schedule with his mission along with everything else." He loops around to look at Naruto, who looks at him with sharp eyes. The ones looking back are the palest blue, almost white like a Hyuuga. The man is simply amused by the intense observation, and gives Naruto's hair a little tweak.

"Ah, and awake as well. Boy, Itachi-san has a way of getting things done, doesn't he Sasori-danna?" The man looks to his right, where Naruto can see the barest hints of a darker shadow amongst the shades. A small figure on the ground stirs, but does nothing, instead looking down the hall with piercing eyes that glare directly into Naruto's own. For a moment, Naruto is overcome with the feeling of sand and apathy, and he can feel his skin itch with grit and windstorms with each passing second. Surely this figure is a man of great power, he thinks, and looks away.

'Sasori-danna' simply gives him a look of thinly veiled disgust.

"Mind your own business, Deidara," says Itachi, irritably pulling Naruto up a bit to adjust his weight against his back. "We need to prepare the place we'll put him for now. There's nothing we can do unless we've all gathered anyway."

Deidara looks amused, rolling the clay in his skilled hands and looking with one pale eye at Naruto. He can't see the other one, but Naruto gets the feeling its not really there. The hair that covers the right eye is cold and glares red from some machinery beneath. Naruto can feel the focus of its lens narrow on him before leaving him. "Why? He seems so weak anyway, why bother, un?"

("_You don't hate enough," says a familiar face to someone as equally familiar, braced against the wall. Naruto can only watch helplessly. He dares not move because he is afraid and no one's here to help him this time, and why isn't Jiraiya doing anything, and why is he just standing there, weak weakweakweakweakweak..._)

Despite the ropes binding him and the rice ofuda holding his seal in check, Naruto can feel his anger burn and his eyes bleed a little from blue to red. He's certain that to fight now would rend him, and even the Kyuubi feels out the seals with tentative sideswipes, always looking fro an exit, but that doesn't matter. He doesn't want to be weak in front of these people anymore.

(_"As you are now, you'll never be able to save Sasuke," says Jiraiya from the window of the hospital room. Naruto is bandaged and broken and his legs ache, and he smells strongly of antiseptic and illness, but he knows that if he tries, he might be able to do something, even if it is but a trifle of an effort._)

"Oi, oi, you might want to slap a few more seals on him, Itachi. He seems to be getting around the ones he has, un," says Deidara with a smile and false urgency in his voice, turning around to where Sasori sits on the ground still, watching with a new look, one that Naruto doesn't understand. There's a secret in it, so heavily guarded that Naruto is unable to even touch it.

Between Itachi and Sasori, a battle between their eyes is being held, unspoken resentment but competition as well sitting there. Itachi tightens his grip and moves down the hallway, and Sasori simply looks away, unwilling to put the effort out to win. Naruto wonders if he can still see the two of them glaring at each other while walking away. Just because their eyes are not focused at each other, does not mean that they're minds have forgotten the conflict. The thought gives him a strange feeling and he shifts uncomfortably. Itachi moves faster out of the room.

Naruto in that moment feels that he has never hated two men more than now in his life. Who are they, really, to decide everything for him? Such hateful looks, how he has tired of them, and how he has seen them from people he thought would never do so.

He doesn't remember much of what happens when Itachi enters a small room with him, other than that other than the feel of crisp paper on his forehead and the sound of soft murmuring, not a chakra based attack but a sutra, much older than what he has learned.

(_"Pay attention, if you want to learn something." says his teacher, pointing at a long line of robed monks, their orange outfits standing out harshly in the grey temple courtyard. They are a long way from Konoha, in the older realms of the world, and Naruto does not think of Sasuke or the Akatsuki when he is here. It smells of thunder and rain here, both calming him and setting the fine hairs of his neck on edge._

"_Don't trust chakra to be more powerful than older things, for even chakra comes from the power of words and understanding. If you do not know what you do something for, there is no strength behind it."_

"_That's why I'll always use my power to protect," says Naruto, standing as straight as he can. He's trying to be mature today, if only for show. He doesn't act serious in earnest with anyone anymore._

_Jiraiya nods, but Naruto catches the sideways glance that was given to the whisker marks on his face and the seal on his stomach._)

The look Itachi gives him before he goes to sleep again stays with him forever. Naruto has never seen someone look so unintentionally remorseful. There is no reason for Itachi's eyes to ever look at him with anything but disgust, but this, this is pity, this is feeling badly for kicking an animal when it is down, and Naruto hates him for it. Pity is the one thing he does not want from anybody, much less someone who thinks himself above it all.

Vaguely, he wonders if Jiraiya was really sober when he said that love and hate were the same thing. Whatever god there was, Naruto prayed to them that it wouldn't be true. He doesn't like what it implies at all.

Naruto hates Sasuke a lot.

But he might hate Uchiha Itachi more.

- - - - -

A/N: Sorry for the delay, I got distracted by drabble death and whatnot. I'm usually a little infrequent on updates, depending on the flow of a chapter. This chapter is a little rougher than most, so don't be surprised if I go back and fix it later.

To all my reviewers, thank you! I will try to take a look at your fiction at the next available chance! It's been a pleasure hearing from you, and I really like hearing your opinion on characterization or where improvement can be made.

And I wasn't joking when I said at the beginning that there was a chance of Sasori/Naruto. It's small, but it will be there.

Note: Ofuda is an onmyoujitsu paper seal used for exorcism or restraint.

Edit 8/28: Text added, general editing.


	6. Special

Title: This Place Is A Prison (6)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. ItachiNaruto.)

- - - - -

"_Tomorrow, _

_I'll become ashes,_

_return to dust."_

Dir en Grey, "304 Goushitsu, Hakushi no..."

- - - - -

"_That's where the Uchiha clan used to live," they say in whispers as though it were a secret, and Naruto, standing quite still in the shade, does not move. He has no need to move because outside a slight interest in Uchiha Sasuke, he has no thought of the clan at all. He can barely recall properly what the rest of the clan even looked like, scarcely recall their voices. (_He can, but he will not try, because at his age, he has no understanding of memory

_They are dead, their children are dead, and very soon (_but not too soon_) he feels that they will be no more, just melt away from Konoha and drain into the ground. He's had dreams and he's had nightmares of the red eyed Uchiha staring at him before the color bleeds away, like water on cloth._

_Every time he has seen an Uchiha, he has thought of wine stains on the tablecloth of a restaurant, an exotic drink from the west beyond the Wind Country, very different from the sake he is used to seeing. He has seen Iruka with it before, sipping it slowly as though being seen with it were enough to make him tragic and elegant. He is both, but never because of a drink. ("_Age gives it flavor, and year gives it potency," he says, turning to the blue eyed boy before him. He is curt, because he has not yet forgiven this child, and he's not sure why he can't yet. There is no reason not to, other than the fact that he -exists-, as though that were a crime. Naruto simply nods, and looks into the glass, not longingly as children are prone to do, but instead sadly.

_There are two young girls standing before the Uchiha compound now, barely on the cusp of adulthood with make-up that makes them look more like exaggerated dolls than women of fine taste. They look like birds, he thinks, looking at the long sleeves of their furisode, flowing gently in the breeze like little sails. The fabrics (_a heavy brocade and silk; fit for royalty_) are deep and verdant next to the cold white walls of the Uchiha compound. Their hair is in little loops in the back, an ornament dangling idly off of one, shining dully in the grey weather._

"_You don't suppose he's in there do you?" asks one. Her voice is sibilant and hissing. Naruto wants to cover his ears just listening to her._

"_Of course, he always spends his time locked up in the house during Setsubun," says the other, moving a hand like a small porcelain tray, fingers poised. "I'd imagine that to get the bad spirits out of his house, he'd have to spend a great deal of time with them," and she giggles as though she has made a clever joke, and for a moment Naruto is positive he has never heard such an ugly sound. Her laughter is misplaced, and it grates on his ears and echoes off of the dark tiles of the roofs. This place refutes her existence._

_As if sensing it, she stops abruptly. The empty compound quickly swallows the sound whole with gaping jaws of silence. They have the presence of mind to leave quickly, but not before catching sight of the small child next to the tree and looking as though they have tasted something very bitter. Naruto, by simply seeing the blush of their cheeks and the redness of their lips, thinks that they look as if they have licked a corpse._

_With a quick glance from dark eyes, they walk off tittering between each other. He can feel their comments bounce off of him and the walls._

"_I don't think all of Konoha has enough soy beans to rid him from us, no matter what time of year it may be."_

"_It would take Hokage-sama himself to throw him out the door!"_

"_How cruel, how cruel, but so right! Too bad that the Hokage is such a kind man. Sometimes I wonder if he even knows how dangerous that boy is." _

"_Ne, ne, let us go somewhere else, with less unsavory company and a little more celebrating. I feel as though I need a drink now."_

_Naruto turns from them, looking up to the buildings of the Uchiha compound, and feels the oppressive aura of the place. But at the same time, he can feel eyes on him, looking from the corner of an abandoned shop down the lane, dark eyes and they are chill like winter evening. But they are cool against his anger, and he welcomes them. Naruto knows his quiet companion well. Between them, there is a kinship born of not only loneliness, but a certain taste of something older, an aged spice that brings flavor, but so subtly that only those who have never felt it could sense its quiet creep in._

_Naruto dares not call it friendship. _

"_You don't need to help me, you know," says Sasuke from across a great distance, but the voice sounds near. He is already defensive, offended by any help at all._

"_I wasn't helping you. I was standing here, that's all."_

_By the shift in Sasuke, Naruto can tell that this is both what Sasuke wants to hear, and what he doesn't. Naruto doesn't know how to please the Uchiha, because he is such a contradiction. (_The ambiguity of the statement brings him a certain comfort that maybe it is his fault_.) There is no consistency between them at all, save for the fact that they are in fact together._

"_They used to have a big festival here on Setsubun," says the dark boy, looking around a bit, lost and overwhelmed by the immensity of the compound. Naruto knows that not even a year has passed since Sasuke's family went away. It must not seem real to the Uchiha, because Naruto feels his heart give a little twinge when the boy looks around, as if waiting for them to jump out and surprise him, and tell him it has all been a horrible joke. And Sasuke would get angry and frown, and immediately start complaining that the joke had not been funny. And his nii-san would just poke him and laugh good naturedly._

_Naruto doesn't know any of this yet._

_But he will._

"_Okaa-san would dress me in hakama she made just for me, and the couple that lived down the street would make little pinwheels that we stuck in between the cracks of the windows and in the moss garden." Sasuke looks around again. "I always thought it sounded like rain when the wheels would spin and clack."_

_With a look at the sky, Naruto can tell that the sky is growing darker than it was before, a chill February day. He doesn't feel the chill as keenly as the boy in front of him, he's made of tougher stuff, of dark earth and the older places despite the youth of his body. He is old and he is young, and neither of his ages will ever properly set in. _

"_It might rain for real today."_

"_So?" The Uchiha looks slightly confused._

_Naruto smiles, not widely or falsely, but like an old man who is teaching a young person something new. There is patience and there is a measure of kindness. Sasuke has said much to him today, more than he usually says. Naruto wishes to pay him back._

"_You can pretend that the rain is pinwheels, while we sit and eat something you like. I can't tie hakama, but I do just fine with kimono."_

_Sasuke, startled, looks at Naruto with something akin to suspicion before his face relaxes, and he smirks hesitantly, coming out toward Naruto. "That's okay I suppose. But instead of here, how about we go into town?" They both feel the oppressive quiet of the empty buildings, pushing against their lungs and making both boys hesitant to breathe too loudly. Naruto nods, thinking about where he's allowed to go._

"_Okay then, let's go," he says brilliantly, his eyes squinted and dark with emotion. With a slight tug on the sleeve nearest to him, dragging Sasuke behind him slowly._

_Behind them, the houses smother their voices. The silence murders their youth._

- - - - -

For the first couple of days, he is disoriented, waking at all the wrong times and always to the same impassable face. He doesn't think too much of it, because really, what should he expect? Naruto may be oblivious at times, but he does not think that it can be said that he expects too much from people. He tries to expect nothing at all.

What he does have are chills, coursing down his spine and making his hands shake every so often. There is no warmth in this place as there is no sun. He hides beneath these walls and ropes, waiting for something to creak open and swallow him whole.

He sees a lot of Itachi now, and actually more of the blonde man (_"Deidara," he mouths to himself_) and strange hunched over figure that is Sasori. It is always in passing, and almost every time that it does happen, he feels the eyes on him again, sharp and biting glass irises that are no color at all; they are just dyed to look like they're real. (_"He's not much of a man," says Itachi, looking with multifoliate eyes down the hall into Sasori's flat ones. "He's more of an imitation, something he'd like to call art."_)

He doesn't think about Jiraiya much. He knows that no matter how smashed the sannin was before he was taken by Itachi and Kisame that by now -someone- has to know that he is not where he ought to be. But he does not expect much of a rescue, but instead imagines that Jiraiya will look for him and fail. For that matter, he does not think that he can be rescued at all.

There are some places that others simply cannot follow.

- - - - -

Waking is getting much more difficult, he thinks, struggling to focus his eyes in the nearly lightless room. The light of a candle and sticks of incense do little to help him see, instead casting longer and darker shadows in the corner of the rooms, where sometimes he can imagine people sitting, staring at him. (_He will always go to sleep after those times._) He does not know when there are people in this dark room any longer, only if they announce their presence.

He is unable to tell if the shadows aren't just shadows anymore. Itachi is so much like one that he cannot see the difference anymore. Both make no noise and sweep the light away, like closing the shutter on a lamp or dousing the wick of a candle with chill hands. Above all else, Itachi has always had cold hands. It is not unpleasant, it's just startling. When he last commented on it, Itachi had released a quick sigh which Naruto took to be a sound of laughter.

("_I am very cold, Naruto-kun." He moves the collar of his cloak a little bit before leaving his hands on his lap as he sits, smoothly on a cushion of plain green cotton. His hands almost glare white in contrast with the black of his cloak, white spiders with hooks that grab skin for legs. Both he and Itachi spend a long time looking at the elegant fingers._

_Itachi's eyes are focused on his ring. It is a mar against the perfect white, cold, steel, and inorganic._)

Shifting slightly, Naruto cranes his neck from off the dirt floor, feeling the grit of silt on his eyelids and between his teeth. They stick in the corners of his eyes, sealing them shut. There is also a small tatami mat beneath him, but he found the ground itself to be infinitely more comfortable, softer in its honesty; the tatami feels like a farce of kindness. He often wonders if the darkness of the room and the smell of wet earth were like being buried in a casket. It's not too common anymore, especially in shinobi villages where burning corpses is more efficient, but it is an honor given to men of particular importance like the Hokage.

Notable perk of being Hokage; they won't throw you to the wind, he thinks, almost miserably smirking at the idea.

He likes the smell of the ground, it reminds him of monsoons and summer evenings, heady and smelling strongly of thunder and the tang of iron. Summer evenings are missions with Team 7, with Sasuke next to him looking uncomfortable in the humidity and Sakura dancing in the drizzle. (_And it is these things he clings to here, because without these scarce moments, he is but elements not yet scattered in the earth._)With the smell of the incense, the mixture of what Naruto thinks is gunpowder and chai, he looks up to the small altar that Itachi keeps on top of a tall wooden chest. A gentle thread of smoke flutters by, looking like a swirling cloud that purposefully covers parts of the room.

Naruto has had a hard time understanding the presence of the altar (_after all, does a man like Itachi really mourn for the death of people?_), but in his time here he knows that there are pale prayer stones that are smooth like river stones and pictures, old ones that look bent and dog-eared, like Itachi had been keeping them in his pocket for some time. The last time that he had looked, he had realized with some horror that one of the prayer stones had Sasuke's name cleanly etched into the surface. The memory of seeing it was still fresh in his mind.

(_"Why would you do that?" he asks, trying not to sound so wounded, because he can't stand the sound of frustration and desperation in his voice. He feels he is so utterly weak, lying on his side with arms bound with rope and an ofuda beating an angry taboo into his blood, like a second heart. He counts each pulse, feeling the ropes tighten as his flesh swells. "Why would you pray for Sasuke if he's not dead yet?"_

_Of course, he's not dead. He couldn't be, he repeats to himself like a mantra. If he says it enough times it will come true._

"_Because Sasuke isn't Sasuke anymore," says Itachi, looking down at Naruto, not sympathetically but with an amount of that pity and reserve that Naruto is progressively beginning to think is just cruelty. He looks as if he expects Naruto to start yelling like he normally would. Naruto moves his lips as if to speak, rolling over on the tatami a bit and moving his breath quickly through his mouth. He is, however, stopped by a firm hand that moves him back to where he was before, sideways (_always_) enough to talk to Itachi. This is not the first time Itachi has touched him without needing a reason to do it._

"_You say otherwise because he is important to you. He is your friend," says Itachi, looking at him directly, undistracted. Naruto feels that Itachi might be looking past him into some other space, perhaps directly into his mind, anticipating what next he will think. "You would let him kill you if you thought it would make things better." He pauses for a minute, as though considering his words. "If you thought it would make him happy." _

_It is like the rumble of thunder when he says this, and the smell of tea surrounds the older man, something very traditional and old, a sense of wisdom that is solely Itachi. Naruto looks directly into the dark eyes (_so like Sasuke_) and sees the conviction in them, the cold and calculating intelligence that people named him a genius for. There is no melancholy, only a calm acceptance, as if he had guessed this was so, arrogantly omnipotent. Unbidden, Naruto feels wetness gather in the corner of his eyes, and salt in his throat. It is with some horror that he finally understands why Itachi burns the incense._

_He is attending a funeral with Itachi._

"_Is he already dead to you?" he asks, throat feeling a little bit tighter than before. "Have you already decided what sequence of attacks you'll use, seen what his every movement will be before he'll make a mistake?" And Naruto winces at what can only be saline gathering, thinking of how disappointed Sasuke would look knowing he was going to lose before the fight ever began._

_With a quick bark of laughter to cover up whatever he might have felt, he rolls away, ignoring Itachi's hand that tries to keep him facing forward, directly toward the Uchiha. He catches the flicker of incense embers and smoke in Itachi's eye. He tries to let out another snort of laughter, rubbing off the absurdity of the situation. He thinks this is like burying a child before it is dead._

"_It's a shame I didn't bring flowers," he says roughly, laughing again when he imagines Sasuke looking at chrysanthemums from the Yamanaka flower shop, laying quietly at the door of his house, very different from the roses and sunflowers he gets from girls. _

_With a frustrated growl, he feels one tear squeeze out of the corner of his eye, burning a line down the side of his face._

_Itachi doesn't watch. He blows out the candles and incense so that no one sees Naruto while he's upset._)

Irritation crosses his face, thinking back to that time. He doesn't know when Itachi became such a strong influence in his thoughts, worming his way in there as if he always belonged there. In his memory, he has never considered the elder Uchiha and his indifferent affect on his time as a child with Sasuke. He knows the mark of Itachi is on Sasuke's memory, but Naruto knows he had not so much as seen a picture of Itachi, and didn't recognize him until he opened the door of the hotel room, so long ago. Where a month (year?) ago he wouldn't have bothered to consider the shadow of Sasuke's brother, he now sees places where invisible hands guided his development.

Naruto resents that it is Itachi's fault, however directly or discreetly, that Sasuke is now in Sound. Somewhere in his mind he knows that it is not Itachi's fault, but his heart is deaf to reason. Someone has to be to blame, and he can only think of the Uchiha clan these days. It is because of Itachi that Sasuke drove a fist straight through his living flesh, trying to rend his heart from his (_buried treasure_) chest.

If he starts understanding now that it isn't their fault, he doesn't think he'll be able to keep from blaming himself.

- - - - -

It was not infrequent to wake and find Itachi sitting on the ground next to him, looking him over with carefully guarded eyes. They did not hold the sharingan in those times, instead black like coal, though late at night when the only light was a small florescent light that Itachi used, his eyes looked like the darkest of blues, almost blending with the pupil in the center.

They hold no warmth, nor a sparkle of thought, but instead a sort of dull weariness, like someone who has seen much, understood why, and still could not come to terms with the results. Itachi is aged far beyond his years, an old man trapped in a young man's body. But when the other Akatsuki are in the room, he never looks this way, only for him. With a small amount of happiness, Naruto thinks he might be the only one Itachi looks at that way ever.

He wakes again now, staring up into the cavernous ceiling where there is a water stain and a crystallizing patch of calcium from a fissure above. It grows slowly, spreading like a cancer on the stone, stark white on grey. He has been with the Akatsuki, underground, for longer than he can properly count, but long enough to note the changes in the environment. It must rain frequently for such a rapid growth on the ceiling. Day and night have no meaning here; he instead counts by the flickers of a candle, the number of times Itachi comes in and out of the room, and the number of beats of his heart (_they are very slow_).

All three are inconsistent, but he pretends it has been little more than a day. He refuses to count the silences, only the times that he actually speaks.

This time when the silence ends, it is not Itachi.

"You look very tired. Why is it that you wake?"

At first Naruto startles a little bit, trying to roll over on the mat to look over to the futon that Itachi had laid out when last he was awake. It is not the Uchiha sitting there, but instead a slight of a man, very thin and willowy with dark auburn hair. There is a mechanical click to each of his movements, though he makes few of them, as though he is rougher in areas where his hinges don't fit quite right (_nothing's beautiful without imperfection, right?_). When he blinks, Naruto is strongly reminded of the dolls in the stores that close their eyes when laid down. The eyelids are heavy and rather flat.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't recognize me. Itachi keeps the fox all to himself until the leader returns. But you have seen me once before, though not quite like this."

His voice is very mellow, old without being worn, and Naruto at once is reminded of the venomous glare of an Akatsuki member that he felt when he came to this place. Deidara calls him Sasori-danna, and Itachi does not name him at all if he can help it, like he holds no respect for the man. But this time, he does not feel the venom in the voice, only mild apathetic curiosity. Naruto wonders if the venom is a cover-up like his own smiles can be at times.

Remembering the intense gaze, Naruto shifts uncomfortably.

"I don't understand it," says Sasori, looking at Naruto with those glassy eyes, the flat lids coming down to clack against the porcelain of his cheek. "I don't see anything particularly interesting about you at all. For that matter, you may very likely be boring." He says as a way of explanation, waving a negligent, cracking hand. Naruto's eyes are immediately drawn to the joints of his wrist. Sasori acts like he doesn't notice. "How can something so impermanent, so not engaging be so important?"

Naruto pretends the comments don't hurt. He imagines a shell around him, encasing him where he can't see this man and his callous comments.

"Being different draws attention," says Naruto, looking at the red (_like wine and blood_) rope. "People usually treat me like I'm different even if I don't look like it." When he thinks about it, Naruto supposes he's really not all that different from everyone else. But at the same time, he doesn't think that Sasori is looking at appearance.

"Ah yes, the stigma of living in an unforgiving society. The most trivial of things are blown out of proportion by it." Sasori gives a sort of lazy smile, as if remembering something, and for a moment Naruto can imagine red sand and the faltering walk of a man and woman, carefully, mechanically walking with a small boy. "You're special because you aren't alone in your body."

"And you?" he asks, throwing caution to the wind for a moment.

"I am a person without a body at all, living in little hollow houses."

It goes unspoken that nonetheless, both of them still think and feel like everyone else. Their state of being is just a little off from the average person. Both realize that they are not so special. It's just everyone else that insists that they must be, as if they are wrong for trying to be the same. The only difference is that Sasori has given up trying to be the same, and now actively pursues being different. Being like everyone else must have been too much work.

For a moment, they both just look at each other weighing and measuring the appearance of the other. When at last their eyes meet, glassy hazel on dulled blue, they come to an understanding.

They are perfectly normal to each other.

"Do you regret the fact that you are different?" asks Naruto, wondering at the question that has plagued him since he was small. (_He won't think of the young women in kimono right now, because they could not possibly count; they don't even know what they were talking about_.)

Sasori blinks slowly, and Naruto imagines hooks and wire, pulling the lids back up just beneath the surface.

"I do not," he says, and Naruto can hear the emptiness of the throat. Naruto tries not to feel disappointed. Sasori looks as if he is about to leave, but stops, looking between their hands, spotting out the differences in smoothness and ridges.

"But you do, and that is what makes you and me different from one another."

Sasori stands before a response can come, kneels over Naruto, and quickly forces Naruto back to sleep. Naruto drifts off peacefully.

- - - - -

When he wakes next, he only sees the glare of the florescent light, and Itachi's dark eyes on him, looking both angry and perplexed. When Itachi notices Naruto's eyes are open, he let's a small sigh of air out before sitting up straight, as though embarrassed to be seen slouching in the safety of his own room. Without understanding this change in posture, Naruto moves his arms a little bit, feeling the tassel of the cord between his fingers. It is a comfort, like sitting in the grass in the fall, feeling the grainy tips of wild rice.

"Naruto," says Itachi, and so startled at the lack of honorific, Naruto looks directly at Itachi, feeling his chest give a twinge of anxiety. Itachi has never said Naruto's name without formality, ridiculously polite for someone who ought to be the villain of the story. There is an anger in the dark eyes, but it is not at Naruto, because it does not burn him like times before.

(_"Oh, it's him again," says a girl, her long sleeves of her kimono pulled up to her chin, as if to hide her mouth. She and her companion giggle, but stop when Sasuke sends a glare towards them, scowling over his bowl of udon. Naruto, feeling better, decides he likes eating with other people._)

He turns his head a bit, as if to look away. He is tired of trying to read other people's eyes. But Itachi quickly calls his attention again by standing up and over Naruto, head craned to look at Naruto in his dirty shirt and ripped up pants. Naruto is vaguely ashamed, because Itachi always seems to be clean and dignified, while he lays on the tatami, covered in a film of dust. He feels he could be a forgotten doll behind a dresser.

"He did not touch you?"

Naruto is thrown off by the question. But of course Itachi would know someone else had been in his room, he thinks. Itachi lives among the most dangerous shinobi, he would have some measure of security set up. Naruto realizes that Sasori must be exceptionally talented to slip those wards without so much as looking perturbed. (_Or perhaps what that blank expression is for is nothing but pointedly not caring_.)

Naruto shakes his head. "No."

Itachi, for the first time since Naruto has come into Itachi's company, looks relieved (_this is only noted in the slightest lowering of his shoulders_) before bending over to make sure all the ropes are still in place (_though Naruto suspects that Itachi might have loosened them himself_) and reseal the ofuda onto his stomach. It surprises Naruto even more when Itachi looks slightly irritated before pulling out a damp cloth and wiping the dust away from his face, carefully removing the grit from around Naruto's eyes and mouth.

And for once, Naruto thinks it might be that way not because he is a cleanly man, but instead because he does not like seeing the tear stain stand out in the dirt caked onto him. It stands alone and glaring from the lines of his face.

"Make sure that no one does."

"Of course, Itachi-san."

The emptiness of the room swallows the two of them, much like the Uchiha compound took in Sasuke and Naruto many years before. Only this time, it does not smother them. It covers them.

- - - - -

A/N: This took forever to actually sit down and write. I've been trying for weeks to get something to sound right, and I believe I actually might be somewhat content with this. Like I said, there are hints of Sasori/Naruto, but it's never going to replace the main pairing. I NEVER replace the main pairing. It confuses me, it confuses you, and so we are all now confused.

On another note, I smell an ending coming up soon. Not too soon, but soon enough. It's getting that complete feeling to me, with at least what I intend to do.

Edit 8/28: Added scenes, additional text, run-of-the-mill editing.


	7. Intensity

Title: This Place Is A Prison (7)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

- - - - -

"_Sitting in my glasshouse while your ghost is sleeping down the hall_

_watching the little birds fly kamikaze missions into walls_."

-Ani DiFranco, "Glass House"

- - - - -

He has a hard time imagining any place other than this, and with each moment that slips away from him, he feels less human and more attached to the ground, and he is growing into it with the passing of time, and he thinks for a moment that his veins would be roots. _( And he also thinks very hard about plants that are moved from their dirt, and now on his windowsill at home there is a sunflower that is probably already dead.) _

When asked about it, Itachi explains it as the prolonged exposure to an earth based seal, and Naruto buys it with a rise of the eyebrows and a beseeching look. He feels much worse when Itachi makes to look away, and discreetly tries to research the seal he has been using. Itachi does everything perfectly, and does not give to chance an opportunity for failure.

Naruto no longer pretends that it is because he is important to the Uchiha.

He doesn't like being disappointed.

There are other times he is moved, uprooted from his home on the tatami and taken to see the other Akatsuki he is permitted the company of. He does not see Sasori anymore. When he asks about it, Deidara laughs it off and says "Sasori gets bored easily."

Naruto snorts, and ignores Deidara who favors him with a few amused glances. He is unsure whether to be offended or to be pleased that the older man is willing to speak so freely with him, and at times while his face sits idly in the dirt, he wishes he were instead with the blonde sculptor.

He hears bits of news every so often, but never from Itachi, who has been gone for longer periods of time now. There are less glances from across the room, fewer moments of understanding. After Sasori came into see Naruto, it seemed as if Itachi would have nothing to do with him at all. Without meaning to, Naruto can feel himself resenting the sudden cut off.

He can't be sure, but he is almost certain that it is because of him.

"He doesn't talk much to the rest of us, if at all," the sculptor says, and smiles a bit. "Quite frankly, we're lucky if he talks at all, un. But if I were to hazard a guess as to why he is suddenly gone for so long, it is because you make him uncomfortable despite that uncaring facade he wears."

Naruto, looking up at the bland grey ceiling, puzzles at this, and feels his heart give a slight pain, without understanding why. "Uncomfortable?"

"You can't let it bother you," says Deidara, and he grabs a new rice cord to wrap Naruto's arms in. It really isn't necessary, but at this point, it is just habit to do so anyway. "Itachi is a very introverted man, and I am sure that having someone in his room all of the time is something of a bother to him, un."

He tries not to be hurt by this statement, but it stings anyway.

- - - - -

"_Why do you care so much if I think you're an idiot?" says Sasuke, and Naruto feels indignation rise up in him as he swings another punch at the training blocks. It is mid-afternoon, and very humid. Without knowing where the knowledge comes from he knows that it will rain shortly, and it fills him with a sad feeling. _

_He kicks, and beneath his foot, he feels the splinters of the wood creak under the pressure. _

"_It's not like I've ever let on I thought something else of you."_

_Naruto swings a punch, covering the sound of his choked grunt. He will not allow himself to be bothered by this useless conversation, and instead names Sasuke a liar within his mind. He will not believe he is nothing but an incompetent to his friend._

"_Everyone else thinks it too."_

_Without thinking and with the blind viciousness of a creature wounded, Naruto feels his lips begin to move, and construct words. He wishes to hurt his friend, but instead it comes out agonized and painful for himself. Naruto knows that he could never intentionally harm Sasuke, not the way that Sasuke always hurt him._

"_It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks! I care about what _you_ think!"_

_Both fall silent at Naruto's outbursts, and Naruto has grace enough to feel embarrassed with himself, throwing a few more strong hits at the block. Each hit lands with a satisfying solidness. _

_He is angry not because Sasuke thinks so little of him, but of the fact that he would bring everyone else thinks of him. He knows what _they_ think._

_To _them_, he isn't a real person. He has understood this, and knows that he is nothing more than an animal to them, a strange beats that dares to walk on two legs and speak casually. Some find it frightening, others find it irritating, and only a rare few see past that to see Naruto. He knows that _they_ are a completely separate society from himself. _

_He was just hoping against fate that they wouldn't affect his one friend._

_He can feel Sasuke's eyes on the back of his head, and without meaning to, he feels irrationally angered and clenches his fists until little white crescents are written into his palms by the edges of his nails. Within the a slight nod of his head, he hopes to convey his message:_ don't come near me.

_Sasuke himself simply comes to stand next to him, and Naruto notes that he has the decency to look partially ashamed of himself. (It could be some other emotion, but Naruto wants to name it something else, just in case he is wrong.) Sasuke has never been one for subtlety and likely disregards Naruto's warning._

"_I shouldn't have brought that up. It was uncalled for."_

_He never apologizes, and Naruto doesn't expect him to. He just keeps striking at the post, unwilling to dignify Sasuke with a glance. It's just not worth the irritation it would cause him to give in to the Uchiha prodigy._

_The next time his fist strikes the wood, his wrist is caught by pale long fingers, and against his will, he finds himself looking at them, eyes lazily comparing the darkness of his skin next to the perfect white of Sasuke. The hand is warm against him._

"_Pay attention for a moment, dobe."_

_Naruto looks, eyes still dark with anger and hurt._

"_Just because I think you're an idiot doesn't mean that you're not my friend or that I don't like you." Sasuke says, and his eyes are black and deep in the sunlight, and Naruto can see no end to their fathoms from where he stands, so very close. He steps back, because the heat of the gaze makes him uncomfortable, and grows into a warmth in the pit of his stomach and rising up his neck._

"_It just means that you're an idiot and I care about you all the same."_

_He looks at Sasuke, very carefully looking for any lie beneath his words. But Naruto knows better. Sasuke wouldn't bother lying to him. It would be too much trouble to explain the truth to him later on when he needed to._

_Naruto feels himself smile, and his smile is brilliant in the afternoon sun and thick air. He is ignorant of the thunder rolling behind him and the sway of the wind, though Sasuke does spare the slightest of glances. _

_He pretends that when he wakes up, Sasuke will still be there. The taste of memory is like ashes, and he doesn't like the grit of decay between his tongue and teeth. It has always made talking a lot harder. The tang of the promise of lightning somehow stains the glint of the light on Sasuke's hair and the intensity of the colors. _

Sasuke is not there when he wakes, and neither is Itachi. He is glad for that, because the bitterness of his tears choke all his words away despite himself. He does not wish to cry, but the smell of a storm has followed him in waking.

When Itachi walks in after a long absence, Naruto almost laughs at the Uchiha's aloof observation that it seems to be raining again.

- - - - -

"Why do you leave for so long now? You used to stay with me for days at a time. Now it's just a few hours." says Naruto, and he looks up, straining his neck to look Itachi in the face (_but never the eyes, because that will start something else.._). He schools his face into neutrality, a hard feat with the disappointment gathering on his brows and drawing them down.

Itachi does not look up from the scroll he is reading, but instead blinks idly down at the page. It doesn't seem like much, but any reaction at all is well worth the observation.

"I have things to attend to other than you."

Naruto winces, and dares to roll his head to face Itachi more thoroughly. "I understand that, but what I don't get why you leave me on the floor with only a little lamp on. I see Deidara more often than I see you, and I'm laying on the floor of your room."

Itachi grunts, but does little else other than unroll his scroll a bit more. Naruto recognizes that he is being ignored.

"Do you require entertainment?"

Instantly, and with a bit of relief, he feels himself fill with the childish anger he is used to, leaving him with the hum of hot blood in his veins. Naruto is fully awake, and he attempts to shuffle his body across the tatami with his hips and feet. Naruto ignores the red eyes that look up to watch him.

For a moment, he convinces himself that he is doing well, slowly making his way across the room despite the pain of the seal on his stomach and the scratch of rice cord against his wrists. Anger gives him strength to struggle against his own weakness.

(_"You try so hard," says Jiraiya, and in his mind's eye he can see himself down on the ground with the decaying leaves in his mouth and nose. It fills him with a lethargy he finds dangerous, much too similar to surrender. Above all else, Naruto must never give up._

"_It's not enough." he says, and the words feel a great deal heavier than he thought they would, little anchors that pull him deeper down. Words have a power that he would prefer to ignore entirely. He has mangled many of them._

_Against his better senses, he continues, his voice cracking in chill winter wind that freezes and makes the moment grow stale with self-loathing._

"_It will never be enough, will it?"_

_Jiraiya says nothing, and Naruto has sense enough to look away from the dark eyes. It seemed rude to watch a man look over his memory again and find it less than he had imagined it to be.)_

"You are always much too angry, Naruto-kun." says Itachi, and for a moment Naruto feels his stomach drop out when the red eyes meet his own, wicked and bloody in the dim lamplight. They seem so much more horrifying now that he knows Itachi's eyes are not always so. "You let taunts get the better of you. It is a mark of a poor shinobi."

Naruto winces, because no matter how simple the words, they still cut deeply.

"Well, it doesn't really matter if I'm a poor shinobi or not, now does it? It's not like I'm ever going to be given the chance to improve again, now is it?" he says, and the bitterness of his voice burns his throat and sears the air. Itachi does not react, nor does he blink. He watches with motionless red eyes.

Naruto continues to shuffle forward, deliberately ignoring the gaze.

If he can have this one victory, this one chance to prove himself worth of _something_, he doesn't care what the consequences will be. He is struggling against time and he is struggling against being irrelevant. It is times like these that he wonders if that is how Neji felt within his family, or how Gaara felt as he watched children play with their families while he stood alone on the sand dunes.

"Stop."

Naruto clenches his teeth, and looks up at Itachi, hardly believing that the stoic Uchiha had even spoken to him at all. He does not stop, because stopping would just be another form of surrendering.

"I cannot allow myself to sit here and be made a fool of," and looking up, he matches Itachi's gaze, half flinching at the Sharingan, and the other half rebelling. "I cannot sit by while I let you all kill me."

"Strange, that after so long you would become so...impassioned."

Naruto looks unblinkingly up at the swirl of crimson. "If no one will fight for me, then I will fight for myself, no matter how useless you think it is." He smiles, and it is abrasive and cutting, Itachi staring down steadily at him, mouth unmoving. "A prodigy like yourself or a wise man like my sensei could never understand what it's like to have to fight for the right to live, much less be a great shinobi. And despite all that, I'm still gonna die."

He looks away, not submissively, but to look up at the ceiling where he can imagine the sun might be shining on the winter grass, chill and unfeeling. It looks because it has to, and has little care for what it sees. Naruto would draw parallels, but he feels it wouldn't matter either way.

"So...so all the same, I will be angry when I want to and I will live as I please, even if it doesn't matter to you or anyone else. That's just the way I've chosen to be."

Silence.

"You didn't understand before, so I don't expect you to get it now either."

Itachi's eyes glare for a moment, and in tiny movements, Naruto can see that he is searching his face for answers. Naruto hopes that somewhere in his miserable frown and drawn eyebrows, Itachi can find some measure of acceptance. He has trusted this man with his real face, and the least he can do is appreciate it.

Naruto coughs out the dust he can feel in his throat, thick and heavy.

Itachi lifts him and puts him on a proper futon instead of the tatami, arms comfortably settled on his chest with the thin red cord curling it's tassels over his left hand. There is a bit more care when Itachi helps Naruto take a drink of water and moistens his lips with a small damp towel.

"Have a care, Naruto."

He looks up, ignoring the cool warmth of Itachi's hand at the base of his neck. It is the warmest thing he has felt since coming here.

"Do not presume to know what others think, for there is very little you can observe of someone's mind. One can make assumptions, guesses, maybe predictions based off of previous knowledge of a person's actions. But _never_ have I known someone able to tell what another thinks."

Naruto winces a little when Itachi pulls his fingers away from him. They are searing.

"And while you may not think you have long," the older man says tentatively, breathing in even timed breaths (_because Naruto knows that Itachi does nothing without purpose_), "do not allow your frustration to rule you. It is destructive to yourself and a waste."

Naruto does not ask why.

Itachi will not answer.

- - - - -

Itachi does little more than sit across the room from him, occasionally bringing a shallow miso broth or water to keep Naruto alive, but weak. They do not speak, but not because Itachi will not do so.

Rather, it is Naruto who does not know what to say.

Strangely enough, Itachi stays for longer now, and makes certain that Naruto is comfortable rather than left alone. It is with no small measure of thankfulness that Naruto lays on clean cotton sheets. Instead of punishing him for insolence, Itachi shows graciousness.

Sometimes, on days like this, it seems as though Itachi is concerned that he will disappear.

The fire is gone from his body, and while he occasionally finds himself thinking of the others (_whom he will not name, because he does not wish to see their faces right now_) his determination is stale in his mind. Reluctantly, he finds himself agreeing with Itachi. To burn too brightly now is to let the fire free of him, to exhaust him. Ultimately, he knows that his growing anger would flicker for a moment before disappearing.

He would have nothing of himself left. Everything else he has given to the nameless faces that he sees sometimes when he sleeps and the man that he can sometimes see in late watches with dark eyes.

From across the room, he can feel the gaze now, briefly lifted away from a small book. Naruto does not return the gaze. Doing so would let Itachi know that he has been felt spying when thought unnoticed.

Grasping for what he can feel of himself in his mind, he feels a little more complete. The other part that he needs he can feel resting in the even glance of Itachi's black eyes. It brings him peace enough to sleep. Unseen, he smiles.

And unseen to him, Itachi's face softens.

- - - - -

"You need to stay awake."

Naruto blinks, and almost in a force of habit, he tries to rub the sleep from his eyes, and instead feels the itchy reeds of rice. He winces away from it, and can imagine the red that covers the skin around his eyes. He hasn't seen his face in a great spanse of time, and he can't imagine how horribly dirty he must be next to the practical cleanliness of Itachi's quarters. By the end of it, Naruto imagines that Itachi will need new tatami mats.

(_"Blood and saliva aren't meant to go on the tatami," says Sasuke, and Naruto watches with wide blue eyes as Sasuke rips one of the rice mats from the floor, rolling it up as if it were the most natural thing he could do._

"_It invites bad spirits in, so we have to throw salt on the house to act as a ward against evil."_

_Naruto looks at Sasuke, and sets another weary glance at the bag of salt that Sasuke keeps at his side, the rougher grains casting a dull shine toward him. Without knowing why, Naruto resents it, and scoots away from it, bare feet scraping against the floor. Sasuke looks up, appearing cross._

"_Stop it, it's not like it's going to burn you."_

_Naruto can look back on that day and know that the Uchiha clan had not given much notice of him as a child, and he feels inordinately happy that Sasuke did not consider what the other children say. If Sasuke had thought it would, Naruto is positive that the salt would have burnt his flesh off._)

"Stay awake. You're not well enough to be sleeping as much as you do. There is a possibility of going into a coma if you sleep too much."

Naruto laughs a little in the back of his throat, quietly and groggily. 'Well, that sounds like a good thing for you. I certainly would be a lot quieter than I have been."

Itachi does not look amused. "Your present silence has been most disconcerting already."

Against his will, Naruto feels a grin crawl across his face, and he looks at Itachi who is writing in careful strokes across rice paper. With the slightest hint of envy but no surprise, Naruto sees that Itachi's calligraphy is straightforward and flawless. In it's sterility, it is lovely. His smile does not waver.

"I suppose there's nothing to entertain you without me, is there?"

"Nothing whatsoever."

Naruto wonders how Itachi is capable of delivering a joke without the slightest change in his expression. Were it not for understanding Sasuke's own dry humor (_and he feels a twinge thinking of him, thought it does not hurt as much as it used to_), he might have thought that Itachi was dead serious. He briefly thinks that all Uchiha must be like that, but quickly brushes it off to the side. Kakashi-sensei thinks to think otherwise (_and hides a picture at his back, that Naruto has only seen once, purely by accident._)

Naruto, mood quickly souring at his thoughts, feels that the punch line might have lost its effect.

"You worry too much about things that matter too little."

Naruto ignores the comment, instead choosing to glare at the ceiling. "And you think too much about actions that are of no importance." He can almost feel the switch in Itachi's humor, but strangely, it is not for the worse.

"Ah, but does that not make the gesture that much more significant?"He stands and leans with casual ease over Naruto, a thin comb in his hands, and a basin of water off to the side. Naruto fights down his nausea from nervousness as Itachi pulls his shoulder toward him. And in an act he thought he would never see happen, Itachi carefully leans his head over the basin and washes his hair with firm but careful strokes.

Shamefully, Naruto sees the red and brown of dirt and blood come free and stain the water and coat Itachi's fingers.

Naruto tries to ignore the soft hands threading through his hair. When that fails, he tries to make it seem less important than it is. Is it necessary, or is it kindness, he wonders. Averting his eyes, he concentrates on the feeling instead.

Itachi's hand lingers a moment too long on his neck.

- - - - -

A/N: This took forever to write, longer than all the other I daresay. I rewrote the parts with Itachi so many time is thought I'd never get anything done at all. He's is a tough nut to crack, and I'm trying to avoid cracking him and having to reassemble him.

I'm trying to slow down a bit, but my pacing is meant to be done in moments, not a time line.

To Master Franny and Tomomi, thank you for being so patient with me! And to all the reviewers, thank you for your kind words! I hope that this chapter is to your satisfaction!


	8. Forget

Title: This Place Is A Prison (8)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. ItachiNaruto.)

- - - - -

"_Cause when this feeling starts_

_that's when I rip it all apart_."

-Billy Corgan, "Mina Loy"

- - - - -

_The sakura blossoms always had a way of painting things in a different light, and more often than not, Naruto's memories of the hanami and spring seasons were tainted with some melancholy or blood. It is not always his, but neither is it pleasant. Naruto still cannot smell the heady scent of sakura without unpleasant thoughts attached._

_He is seven years old again, and the evening is cool against his neck and humid with spring rain that makes him itch with anticipation. The kyuubi within him rejoices in the storms, and even now he can feel the stirrings of it without realizing exactly what it is._

_Across from him is the Uchiha compound, dark and heavy in the night, very unlike what he had seen before. In his child's mind, he can see the many people that peppered the buildings with their red fans and proud stances. He had seen them often (and feared some) and was unaccustomed to the darkness surrounding their homes._

_Within him, the twisting creature that has no name shifts uneasily._

_His small hands grab at the bark of a tree, and they hurt slightly as he grips the trunk as though hanging on for security. Above him, the blossoms whisper in the wind, casting petals on the ground without sound._

_Ahead of him, nothing stirs, though faintly he thinks he might hear anguished voices, echoes reflected of the edges and eaves of the old buildings. Behind him, Konoha seems quiet._

"_What is it that you are looking for?"_

_He jumps a little, turning to the other side of the tree trunk where he can see the legs of someone, sticking out nonchalantly. He does not look to their face, afraid of what he might see. Naruto breathe in carefully before deciding how to reply._

"_I was looking for the voices."_

_There is a tangible silence from the other side, a way of quietly indicating the need for explanation. Naruto swallows a little, looking cautiously back to the Uchiha compound, where there is nothing to be heard._

"_I...like hearing the people. It's better than being alone. I came here to listen to other people, so that it wouldn't be so lonely tonight." he says, and ashamedly looks away, embarrassed to be caught so easily when he though he had been sly._

_Inside, the kyuubi twists in warning, but does little else._

_The legs shift a little, seeking a more comfortable spot in the damp dirt that is littered in cherry blossoms, many decaying slowly in the moisture. He catches the smell of something sweet and metallic, but says nothing. Naruto instead looks up to the tree branches where the moon slides in and out between the clouds._

"_There will be nothing to be heard for a long time," the man beneath the tree says, and Naruto accepts it, feeling a heaviness in the space that he thinks he might have a heart. Sometimes he wonders if there's not something wrong with it. He always seems to be in pain._

_This pain is different, and it speaks foreboding against the sakura's branches._

_He turns, his mind filling with a sudden uneasiness, and the coiling of his belly growing progressively stronger. Everything yells at him to run, but he cannot convince his legs to move. His breath hitches a little, looking down the walkway into the compound. _

_In the light of the moon, the blood of the Uchiha family looks more black._

"_You shouldn't depend on others to keep you from being lonely. It weakens you." the man says flatly, and listening, Naruto doesn't hear a man so much as a boy, voice newly deepened with adolescence. He turns to look under the tree, and finds no one there._

_He runs with fervor, trying to just get away, and not come back, to leave without being seen and caught. Behind him, Uchiha Sasuke lies on the ground, alive and asleep. To the north is the man, leaving the shinobi village and not giving a second thought to the small blonde headed boy he saw._

_Without knowing that it was him, it is the earliest memory Naruto retains of Uchiha Itachi. Naruto also doubts that Itachi remembers the moment at all._

_It must have seemed so insignificant next to everything else._

_- - - - -_

When he creases his eyes open, the only thing he can see at first is the blurred image of grey and yellow. The smell of wet clay is overpowering.

"Oi, are you paying any attention to me at all?"

He looks up at the glass blue eyes of Deidara, his own very wide with sleep and shock. The jerkiness of his time between consciousness si growing worse, and he rests more often than not. Many times he wakes to Itachi pulling at his shoulder, trying to shake him awake.

Naruto wishes the Akatsuki would just let him sleep in peace.

"I thought not, un.Uchiha-san handed you off to me an hour or so ago. He has things to take care of and will return in a few hours more, un. So instead, you will stay and play with me." says Deidara, and he smiles, dangerously wide, even though Naruto does not fear him any more. Behind a shock of pale blonde hair, Deidara's mechanical eye clicks and hums electrically.

Naruto adjusts to his surroundings, and with each blink he can see an expanse of work shelves covered in incomplete sculptures and clay blocks. The room is damp and thick with the scent of silt and porcelain glazes.

One sculpture, he notes, must be a self-portrait. Deidara has cut the right eye out of the face and rammed a handful of carving tools into it.

"These clays don't explode, but that's okay, because you'll get to play with them longer," and Deidara lovingly rolls a piece of light green sculpture clay between his dextrous hands. "If I had a whole room of explosive clay, I'd imagine the whole hideout would have exploded, un." Naruto can hear the smile behind the words.

His hands, for once, are not wrapped in the rice cord, and looking at his wrists he can see where they are raw with agitation, the skin dark and bruised from his constant resistance. Hesitantly, he clenches and unclenches his fingers, favoring Deidara with a curious look.

"Uchiha-san said it was okay, did it himself for that matter. Said something about you being a person and not an animal, and that you were smart enough to pick and choose your battles, un." says Deidara, and he grabs Naruto's weary hands and places a piece of clay in his hands, closing the fingers around it.

"Even if you aren't much of an artist, it will help you keep the strength in your hands, un. Your body has atrophied a lot since you got here."

Finally, Naruto finds his voice.

"How long have I been here?"

At first Deidara looks a little shocked, and when he looks as if he will say, he instead closes his mouth with a wry smile and says nothing. Naruto feels his frustration become tangible all over again, despite all the warnings he has been given about wasting energy.

"A little over three months, un." Deidara thoughtfully kneads his clay, before looking Naruto in the face. "Long enough to be considered a missing nin in Konoha. The sannin Jiraiya was forced to return to Konoha and report the loss of you to the Hokage, un." He looks over to the rack to where Naruto can see a few ruined sculptures. "She was not pleased, un."

At the word loss, Naruto imagines Jiraiya having to return to Konoha and tell Tsunade that he failed again. No matter what Naruto had called him in the past, or the angry mutterings he used while they were out in the wilds together, Naruto still did not wish such a cruel fate upon the old man. Jiraiya had seen enough disappointment out of life already.

(_"It's nothing I can't handle," he explains to Naruto, looking over the ridge of trees to some unknown distance, frowning severely. "When you get older, you realize that not everything is going to go your way. You just do what you can with what you have."_

_Naruto looks in the direction that Jiraiya glares, and he gets the feeling that they are both looking at the Hidden Village of Sound from a profound expanse._

"_But just because you get used to it, it doesn't mean that it stops hurting. It just gets duller and you learn how to ignore it." says Jiraiya, and he smiles thinly, as though spreading some sort of comfort to his student._

_Naruto knows that Jiraiya has not learned how to make it hurt less._)

In his hands, Naruto clutches the clay and feels it slip between his fingers, molding to all the contours of his hands. Little moon shaped scars cover the surface from his fingernails that are unnaturally long.

"Uchiha-san is right, it doesn't take too much to set you off, does it?" asks Deidara, and in his hand she has already formed out the rough shape of a heron, thin and fragile looking in his callused hands. Naruto fears that the older man might crush it, and he can't explain why. "Just thought you should know, un. Uchiha-san does not tell you anything if he has not told you that already, un."

They sit in silence for a time, both working the materials between their fingers, though Naruto often feels that he is destroying rather than creating. The surface damage done by his nails and dirty hands alone tarnishes the clay. Every time he apologizes for messing up the clay, Deidara smiles and gives him a new piece.

At the end, Naruto feels like a child being picked up from the academy by a parent, Itachi standing at the door and cooing about how cute his new sculpture was, and Itachi morbidly saying that he would likely destroy it the moment that they left. Deidara says nothing, and Naruto gets the feeling that it might be true.

Naruto's own sculpture is very plain. It is a block, with little moon shaped scars and dirty marks from his hands that never seemed to come off when he washed them. When asked by Deidara what it is, he answers simply with a bark of dry laughter. It is a prison.

Deidara laughs too, but Itachi favors the cube with a strange glance.

When asked later than evening why Itachi did not tell him Jiraiya had gone back to Konoha, Itachi does not answer, just looks at him blankly while holding a bowl of miso in one hand and a bowl of rice in the other.

Shuffling under the blankets to sleep again, Naruto thinks that he may know the answer why.

Itachi had tried to make him forget.

- - - - -

Next to him, there is a distinctive sound of water dripping from the ceiling, and with all the lights out, Naruto can only guess that it is night time and that Itachi is not with him. The incense of the funeral stones is conspicuously absent, and the small florescent lights that hurt his eyes are off. With a quick pawing with his hand, he feels droplets of water come free from his face and blanket.

It is raining outside, and it has come through the walls to him. Naruto almost laughs, because how very stubborn nature must be to chase him into the darkest cave to drop cold salty water on his head from the calcium and quartz above. As if things weren't bad enough, he thinks wryly.

With a quick sneeze he rolls to his side, feeling on the ground for the edge of Itachi' s side drawer where he kept a reading light. The wet of the dark bothered him, and he felt a lot heavier without anything to assure him that he was not trapped and alone.

(_"I used to have dreams about being the kyuubi," he tells Jiraiya while lying on his stomach, the ryokan's firm futon not easing the sensitivity of his skin. "It was always dark and it was always quiet, suffocating."_

_Jiraiya gives him a look, the one reserved for when he is acting strangely. _

" _I used to think that I had changed places with him, and sometimes I wonder if that's what it's like, wouldn't I do the same?")_

With blind movements, he feels the beginnings of a scroll next to him, the rice paper curling in the humidity, and further across, he feels the steel tip of a kunai, sitting in a holster, safely kept from him.

A little further yet, and he feels silk.

He almost gasps aloud when he feels it pull out of his grasp. It is not silk, but Itachi's hair, loosened from it's usual conservative ponytail. A firm hand carefully grabs his own and pushes it away gently.

"You should go back to sleep, Naruto." he says deeply, and for a minute Naruto is startled, hearing the tiredness in Itachi's own voice. He finds himself wishing fro the familiar feeling of the Sharingan in the dark.

He hears Itachi move before he feels the careful scarred fingers on his shoulders, pushing him back down. He gives out a grunt of protest, but soon eases his way back on his own, feeling the headrest and the paper seal resume its normal flow.

To his concern, Itachi's hands carefully track back, feeling out the side of the furniture before coming to rest in his lap, sitting cross legged on the floor. Itachi makes no effort to turn on a light at all to make sure Naruto is as he should be.

"There's a leak in here, you know," he says, trying to be funny in their usual moments of placidity, and waits for a scathing remark about how it's obvious with his feet sitting in a puddle. None comes. "We should turn on a light to see where it's coming from." There is another tense moment where Itachi does nothing other than glance blankly out into the dark room.

Finally, he hears Itachi shift.

"The lights hurt my eyes. I'd prefer to keep them off." he says stiffly, and Naruto realizes for the first time that Itachi is unable to see as well as he would like, and his mind immediately shifts to thoughts of the Sharingan and the splitting headaches Sasuke would get if he used it for too long. The connection was uncanny.

"Does the Sharingan give you headaches if you use it for too long?" he asks, carefully as not to affront the proud man across from him. He will not bring up Sasuke, because that just seemed taboo in Itachi's presence.

With a shudder, he feels his teeth clack together in the cold room.

Itachi does not answer, just rubs his eyes with one hand while standing up to go to Naruto's side. The tall man comes to a crouch by Naruto, and feels the damp floor with his hands.

"My apologies, I was not aware of how cold it was on the floor," and without warning, Naruto feels himself being lifted up underneath his legs and back, his head coming to rest on Itachi's shoulder, feeling the gossamer hair shift between the rough black clothes and his own ears.

Rather than put him down, however, Itachi sits them both on his own futon, Naruto's head pulled up to him and a smooth linen sheet wrapped around the two of them lightly.

"You're too cold to sit by yourself," Itachi says by way of explanation, and while Naruto would try and disagree to be funny in any other situation, he finds himself relaxing into the embrace, his body quivering in the cold.

Despite his cold body, hehopes that when Itachi pulls him closer still that it is not as much for necessity.

- - - - -

"You're a lot paler than you used to be," says Itachi and Naruto finds himself agreeing, looking down at his thin arms and unnatural pallor. Where it looked good on the dark haired Uchiha, Naruto thought he was beginning to look more like a ghost than a human being.

He is wrapped in a new blanket today, but with it is a new seal that makes him feel nauseated at every turn of his head, and this likely contributes to his green looking face. Across from him, Itachi sits respectfully cross legged, a book in his hand written in kanji that Naruto cannot recognize. Both look at each other, though for once in the slightest lightening of Itachi's dark eyes, Naruto thinks he might see amusement there.

"I don't see what so funny about being motion sick. You're just proud of yourself because you learned a new seal to use on me." he says grumpily, and while there is no obvious change in Itachi's face, the charcoal grey of his eyes say differently.

"If you feel the need to be motion sick, please do it in the opposite direction."

Naruto quickly gets angry, but covers it with a smug look.

Where he might have once thought about the kyuubi and the others that would be looking for him, he now thinks instead how to get past Itachi's wry humor. The man doesn't say much, but when he does, it just made all the efforts worth his time.

- - - - -

The new seal allows him certain freedoms, and while he can no longer feel the chakra of the kyuubi or himself, he is able to walk again and no longer wears rice cord as a safety measure. His wrists, despite the removal, remain a glaring red under lamplight.

The caves are always dark, and he stumbles blindly with weakened legs and gangly arms that adolescence has not taught him to use yet. Itachi helps him along, a hand on his shoulder and another on his waist, supporting his weight.

He takes him to a small dim cavern, the water pooling at the bottom and reflecting onto the ceiling in a thousand little waves of light. Naruto cannot see the light himself, and he begins to wonder if the glow isn't just a memory of the sun. Wearing a simple black shirt that is too big for him, he lies exhausted on the ground, looking up at Itachi.

Itachi stands next to him, looking thoughtfully over the expanse, seeing something that Naruto isn't able to comprehend. They look blankly like that for a long time before Itachi finally breathes a little louder in and sits down.

"Any particular significance to this place?" he asks, trailing a hand in a nearby pool, feeling the iciness of it. Itachi does not look down, but naruto can feel the smirk that would be there.

"It's quiet, unlike some other people I know."

Naruto grins, not because it's funny, but that it is sometimes nice just to hear the reverberations of Itachi's voice, to know that Itachi is still listening. It is more than he can say for many people, including those who he considers friends who listen, but do not comprehend.

"Yes, but I mean whether or not this place has a purpose."

"It does, but it doesn't."

Naruto almost startles at the statement. Itachi has always been very straightforward when he said things, and the sudden ambiguity of the words confuse him. Itachi never does anything without purpose.

"It has a reason to be here, it just isn't a very important one."

For a moment, Naruto wonders if they're even still talking about the cavern anymore.

Well, what do you consider important then, Itachi? Jutsu? Strength?" he asks irately, feeling offended without properly thinking it through. "If that is what you live for, then I would say that not very much would seem important to you, now would it?"

Itachi looks blankly ahead, unaffected.

"Why is it that every time our thread of conversation comes down to you, you are allowed to dodge it, but I have to answer?" he asks, his voice gaining volume.

Itachi continues to look away.

It's not fair, he thinks, and feels the desperation growing inside him, wings of flame that burn and dissipate inside of him. It doesn't seem right that he be so open, and the other so closed. It is history repeating itself over and over, written in the faces of two men that share a similar face and similar beliefs.

Naruto knows that he is too loving, too open to be a proper shinobi: emotionless. As though to prove a point, he feels himself shake with anger and sadness.

In the phantom light of the cave, he reaches across the distance with his body, gravity pulling more heavily than he would like to think it ought to. Itachi does not move, but Naruto distinctively feels his eyes soften, the bloody red of them shifting gently to dark grey.

Itachi meets him halfway, and Naruto feels his heartbeat in his ears as his lips, trembling with tenderness, meet Itachi's.

He wants to sob, he wants to be angry, or feel nothing, anything but this desperate elation. But Itachi is merciless, and pulls him in, not allowing him to think of anything else.

Naruto forgets everything else. Including the smell of blood and sakura that linger on Itachi.

- - - - -

A/N: Ah, marathon writing has a way of getting to people. So here we have it, the culmination of eight chapters of angst and misery.

I would really appreciate it if you review. It makes me feel more inclined to update when I know what others think.


	9. Time

Title: This Place Is A Prison (9)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

- - - - -

"Now that you're subdued

I begin to weaken you

Rise and fall we decompose."

-10 Years, "_The Recipe_"

- - - - -

"_I'd give a lot to complete my goal."_

_It is not Naruto that speaks, of that he is certain._

_He is a non-age now, too small of body to be an adult, yet too wise to be an adult. There is an awkwardness in the way he breathes, in the way he chews his lips and feels each crack out and tastes the blood from them. He knows that licking them will make it worse (Tsunade told him so) but all the same he does it and winces when another rip is made._

_While he does not know his age right now, he knows that his hearing has not left him. And that hearing voices has not been good, no matter how mad you are perceived to be. _

"_You do understand, right?"_

_Naruto looks to the right and then to the left, but finds no one there. The voice is familiar, but isn't. There's some dust on it, as if it might have belonged to someone years ago, but doesn't hold quite the same timbre and meter anymore. ("_The music box never does sound like it used to when you're older, does it?" asks Sakura, and in her hand is a key, rusted and knicked. It lies like a broken thing in her palm, glinting.

_He finds himself saying yes, and it sits on his tongue, almost as tangible as a coin, every bit as metallic and bitter against the roof of his mouth. The word is so cheap, it must only be a 5 yen coin._

_He swallows, angry that he was going to speak to shadows. He has done that long enough, and if a lifetime (A childhood? A century?) has taught him, it is that speaking to shadows is the same as wishing on stars: worth absolutely nothing, but feels good all the same._

"_I'm not sure I understand myself." says the voice, and in the waves it creates, Naruto would like to think that he can see the form it takes, the sound bending to move around the speaker. Tall and lanky, he thinks, but elegant, far more elegant than myself. "I'd like to think you know how it feels."_

_He knows the voice, but with a secret smile, he hides it in his heart, and it beats against his hear like a living thing. His mind grinds against his spirit, insisting that it is not hope._

"_If nothing else, I want everything to turn out, but it can't. It never does. Until that man dies, I will not be able sleep, to eat, to think without seeing my parents on the floor."_

_Naruto smiles thinly, not because he is happy, but because it pulls his face taut, no sot edges for venom and steel to catch on._

"_I will not think of you any longer, you know. I will forget you. You should do the same." _

_Naruto laughs lightly, because he knows this can't be real, because he knows that he is miles from the nearest civilization, that he is on the forest floor looking up to the sky (which will be grey, like the lining of his futon), and that Jiraiya is waiting in a nearby post town. He knows quite pointedly that Sasuke is not here, and that he must be making this up, because there is no other explanation._

_No more words pass between his ears (or perhaps his mind?) and for a moment Naruto panics, his body too heavy to lift. He has wondered at the sound of Sasuke's non-existent voice, and he wonders if he is so cruel as to deny himself this one thing._

_He strains his ears, because no matter how crazy people think him, or how different it is, the voice is something comforting. _

_It is a key to someplace, somewhere, and behind whatever door that it contained would be Sasuke, and some measure of peace that would destroy the hatred he felt toward Itachi for driving Sasuke away._

_He goes to sleep, nursing that scornful emotion in his chest (and how he HATES it right now, how he despises how it makes his heart beat faster and his mind anticipate more), feeling as though no matter how dark the words, they could never challenge his will._

_Against his hand, he crushes a leaf, and smells fire._

_- - - - -_

There are not words between them as often as there were before (and even then, it was borderline never) and every time Naruto wakes up, lying on his futon, face up, he feels the dark eyes of Itachi. There is always a silence that follows after, and it is not from the lack of sound, but a complete cessation of thought as well.

Naruto doesn't know how he knows, only that he does.

He is grateful that the ropes are gone, he is grateful that he can walk again, and he is grateful for every opportunity to talk to others that he is given. Naruto would show his gratitude, but he cannot contain his relief in any action and his smiles are a lot cheaper than they used to be. Itachi must notice, because whenever Naruto smiles, he frowns.

Naruto is frustrated, and he cannot understand this completed steel facade, as if the Uchiha had just been waiting for the moment to turn in on himself. It is the perfect armor, and he is vulnerable to it, unable to mask his despair every time that the impenetrable gaze of Sharingan falls on him.

Emotion, he thinks to himself, is a predetermined traitor.

Nothing else could possibly explain his unhappiness at Itachi's withdrawal.

He lies on the floor again, arms off to his sides and his legs twined with each other, and with a childish fancy, he wiggles his toes against each other, happy to feel something other than numbness, even if it is cold toes on the soles of his feet. He has learned to appreciate more, and savors what he can get. He won't get much anymore.

Next week, the leader of the Akatsuki will return, and the group will be in full assembly. Deidara has told him this flippantly, and Naruto is grateful, because Deidara will not neutralize a conversation with cool words. Honesty is the best policy, and Naruto rather see the sword before it strikes.

Nausea hits him hard in the gut, and with an errant hand, he brushes against the rice paper of the seal, listening to it whisper against the harshness of his own fingertips. He could rip it off right now, he could if he really tried, and there's really no reason for hm to stay either. He is simply drifting in a world with no purpose.

He is existing in order to die, and this fills him with aggression again.

"At least you're not smiling this time."

Naruto is perceptive enough to not startle at this, because Itachi has never really used conventional means to enter a room, instead appearing.

"Then are you pleased that I am unhappy, or perhaps you simply do not like to see me smile?" he says, and feels a victory and loss all at once when Itachi looks at him and then dismisses him with his eyes.

"You wear a mask."

"So do you."

Itachi almost glares, and Naruto grins, content with that.

"But yours is not natural. It is grotesque."

Naruto smiles again, and this one is deliberate and slow, one that faces Itachi and that he can see the deep lines and curves that make up the older man's face. It is spiteful, he knows, but that faint twinging in his chest feels a vague sense of satisfaction from it.

"You said that I was too obvious. That I was easily read." he speaks flippantly, and he thinks of Iruka-sensei explaining the answers on a test. "And now, you cannot tell if I am happy or not because I will never stop smiling." It is an arrogant statement, one that is not meant wholeheartedly, and he cannot keep the hurt from his voice. Itachi recognizes it, and he knows this by the way that the Uchiha shifts on his feet, looking quietly at him.

Itachi always looks weary.

"Naruto."

He turns his head away, because Naruto recognizes this tone.

"What did you think would change when you reached for me at that time?"

There is only one time, and even Naruto cannot feign ignorance of it. He also cannot say that he wholly understands it either. What had he been thinking, allowing himself to do something so foolish, even foolish for him? Lips pressed together can mean a lot of things, and Naruto has not decided on what reason he chose. He is almost angry that Itachi even brings it up.

"Nothing."

"Liar." The way Itachi says it makes it sound more like a curse, something dreadful and forbidden. Itachi has no use for lies, and has no patience for wasted words.

Naruto turns away, and ignores the persistent glare directed at him. I won't fight this fight, he thinks, because it is unfair. He is right. Itachi has armor and he does not, and Itachi has power where he lacks.

From above, Naruto is aware that he lays on the floor like a crucified man.

- - - - -

Three days have passed, and Naruto is painfully aware that he has four more to live, and that there is nothing left to live for. Long term goals look silly next to the ephemeral nature of his time remaining. He wonders how many times he has felt four days pass, and how quick they seemed. What was four days out of a life, anyway?

From underneath his sheets, he kicks irritably, torn between anger and immense fear.

(_"Saying you're not afraid to die and then being faced with the prospect are two very different things." The words are muffled, and Naruto nods, watching Kakashi's mouth move underneath the mask._

"_And then being faced with the prospect and knowing for a fact that you will die...well, they aren't alike at all."_)

He swallows, extremely hard, and feels each of his muscles flex. The persistent nausea that is caused by the seal has gotten progressively worse each time Naruto has felt the Kyuubi, and now he feels quivers run down each piece of his body, shaking the reserve out of him like some broken toy.

On accident, he bites his tongue and grunts, calling attention from the other side of the room. Itachi looks up from his book, but obviously isn't impressed by what he sees. Naruto blushes, ashamed to be shaking like some helpless child on the floor, getting dirt on the side of his face and in his mouth.

Naruto does not want to taste a grave before he needs to.

In four days time.

"Naruto-kun. Are you ill?"

He wants to say yes, to shout it to Itachi and scream that this place is getting to him, that the walls are closing in and that above all else he is _aware_ that they are one of the last things he'll ever see. He wants to break every bone in his body, to curl in on himself like the serpent consuming its own tail.

Instead he continues to shake, looking at Itachi from twitching eyelids. They seem strangely white and veined in the lamplight. Opening them, he can see his face reflected in Itachi's own mirror gaze, placid and horrifying.

"Naruto, stop it."

He can't and he is offended, mostly with himself, that his body is non-responsive and desperate, his fingers slowly dragging across the dirt (_dig deeper, surely there will be somewhere to hide_). He is NOT afraid, and nothing around him is willing to agree.

Finally, from across the room, Itachi sighs, and closes his book (and the paper hisses with a dying fall), rising to come and walk over. Naruto feels his fingers dig a little deeper, but says nothing, instead focusing on the lump in the back of his throat that just doesn't seem to want to go away. Itachi is unperturbed, but shifts until he is on his knees, graceful and dark next to him.

"You are afraid."

Naruto wants to call him an idiot, because nothing seems more evident by the way his fingers twitch.

"It is very unlike you, after so long of not caring."

"There were no dates then." he says from between a bleeding and a cracked lip.

"Ah." Itachi says, as if this explains everything, and for a moment Naruto sees the glint of something torn between amusement and concern, but it disappears into itself before it can show in the impassive face. He thinks of Jizo and Buddha, but does not say so. Itachi does not seem to be a religious man.

His prayers are a ritual, not faith.

"It's very different," he mutters, "to know the date of your death versus living day by day with the hope of another." Naruto turns to see Itachi directly, and gets no response, predictably. His instinct tells him to reach for the other man, to evoke a reaction, something of a feeling or thought. His mind reminds him what that got him before, and Naruto falls still, disappointed with everything.

"Then you would prefer to not know?" Itachi asks, and there is an earnest question in there somewhere. "And if you died right now, by my hand, would you be displeased because you were supposed to have a few more days to yourself? How very selfish of you, Naruto."

He smiles again, but this one is real.

"Then I would thank you. What is life when everything is a science or a measurement? That's the way you think, and that is the way that Sasuke thinks." Next to him, he feels Itachi stiffen a little but stay passively still. "I'd like to live thinking there was something to look forward to. Knowing when you die is leaving you to live knowing the exact moment you cannot live any longer."

"And that is very cruel, having the remainder of your life overshadowed by the knowledge that you will die on a predestined date."

Naruto looks over, startled by Itachi. They do not look at each other, but Naruto suspects that Itachi is not thinking along with him any longer. He is perhaps thinking of the other person he has taken the joy of living from. Naruto finds himself wondering if Sasuke ever feels this miserable, so wretched and loving every time that Itachi looks his way.

(_"You must live with what you are given." says Tsunade, and she is a deity in the sun, her hair coppery in the sunset. It is unusual to see her, but Naruto is well pleased that he does, because looking at her now, all he can see is the enlightenment of those older than him. "While pain may be forgotten, and happiness fleeting, you must live with what you feel. It will never leave you, not for a moment."_

_Naruto still wishes the feelings away, because if they won't leave, he might just abandon them._)

At last, Itachi looks at him.

"Then why have you not tried to die by honor?"

Naruto, unwittingly, curls in a little and shudders again, thinking of the glint of sharp blades and angry red wounds he has seen on the bodies of the honored dead. He has heard of Kakashi's father (by rumor, something he rarely gave heed to but considered a base of truth to.) And especially, he has met people that would willingly take their lives in order to keep clean their name.

Honor, he knows, is just another word for hollowed.

"Maybe I'm just selfish as you said." He says it tightly. "I'm not afraid of pain, but I am afraid of being nothing anymore. Maybe I want to live whatever I have left."

It is a small mercy when Itachi finally gives him something to relax his body. Each muscle unclenches tentatively, and even though anxiety still beats against Naruto's veins, he is comfortable. To his further surprise, Itachi stays next to him, and when he awakes (_hours?minutes?_) later, remains unmovingly (_unlovingly_) next to him.

He isn't sure if this devotion is false or honest.

Either way, it seems like a funeral present.

- - - - -

"_Life isn't kind to you, but there will always be at least one person you can count on."_

_It's nighttime, and near his head he can hear the cicadas still humming next to the crickets chirping. He has never been very fond of the hotel futons, but he buries his head in it, ignoring his teacher who has dawned his pipe and another round of sake. The scene is familiar, and the words are as well._

"_Psh, well that's what I thought until about two years ago."_

_He is bitter now, and he is not in the mood to hear one of Jiraiya's optimistic speeches to cheer him up. They don't work very often._

"_Now my errant student, let's not have any complaining. I'm only telling what this old man has learnt. After that, we'll get on to more exciting topics...Don't roll your eyes at me." says Jiraiya, and the pipe smokes ominously as Jiraiya chews on the bit, eying him speculatively. "Now you're just being the snot-nosed brat that I remember from a couple of years ago."_

_With a wry smile, he buries his head again, covering his nose from the smell of tobacco. It is very strong, because the hotel is cramped and the futons are close together. Jiraiya does not have the good grace (or good manners) to step outside._

"_Does this lesson have a point, or are you filling up the gaps between us?"_

_Jiraiya snorts and then laughs good naturedly. He has not had much sake yet, even if it is late into the evening. Naruto is weary of sobriety._

"_No, because that's your job." says Jiraiya, but his smile doesn't reach his dark eyes. Naruto knows that the moment ought to be funny, but for some reason he doesn't see any humor in it at all._

_He snorts, covering his neutrality._

"_I feel so honored."_

"_Of course, and you should. But that is neither here nor there, and students ought to listen to their teachers when they talk." _

"_Then talk, " he says cheekily, rolling over in his futon. He'd much prefer it if Jiraiya would just reach over and hit him for being insolent. Two years have not been full of tolerance, and Naruto knows that he can be abrasive at times. He regrets it when he looks over a his quiet teacher, who blows a wisp of smoke between his lips and sighs._

"_I wish you trusted me more." says Jiraiya. "There are so many people in the world, and hiding amongst them are people who want to help you. One just can never tell where help is coming from."_

_Naruto disagrees, and despite his optimism, he can see more dark faces in a crowd than kind ones. The corners of the room waver in his vision mockingly._

- - - - -

Two days, and Naruto no longer shakes, but very quietly suffers, staring at the ceiling of the cave, counting crystals as though his life depends on it. Each facet seems interesting now, and where he might have once consider the dull grey stone boring, he now sees a hundred colors that change with each flicker of the candles.

Itachi's eyes are not a swirl of black and dark blue, but full of careful striations, and Naruto sees where it looks like an artist's brush has painted on glass. It is beautiful in its lines and grains. He sees them more often now, because Itachi never leaves him alone. At first, he thinks it is to make sure he doesn't take advantage of his newfound freedoms (and how useless they are now, knowing that he did not get to keep them long.)

He does not expect sympathy, and he does not believe that it is there. If nothing else, Itachi is a creature of habit, and regret or sorrow for another would be wasteful of his time.

"You're thinking about irrelevant things again."

"I won't have time to do it for too much longer."

"Hn."

They are both quiet, Naruto sitting on a cushion, Itachi across form him, and neither one with anything relevant to say. (_There_ is _a lot he would like to, but he feels foolish for even considering it. With a grimace, he rips his mind away from it._)

Itachi is the first to speak again.

"Suppose you used your remaining time for something more beneficial?"

Naruto laughs, and it sounds old, all joy sucked from it and left rattling like empty rice shells. "To what, become a better ninja? I didn't have much to live for to begin with other than the shinobi way. No, Itachi, I might has well enjoy what I've got, because it's all that there is left to exist for. If I want to think in circles, I will think in circles."

"You act so sure that you know when you are going to die. Is there anything certain about the time of your death?"

"A date." he says, picking at the corner of his pants, where he can see it unraveling in patches. He had two other pairs with Jiraiya, but he doesn't know where they are now, or why they are significant. "I've accepted that there's nothing left to do other than make my last hours memorable, if only for something as stupid as how many times the diamond pattern repeats on the incense dish or how you wear your hair a quarter inch lower when you are not expected in battle."

He deliberately ignores how Itachi watches him, with something akin to exasperation or frustration, but he leaves it nameless. It would be much too upsetting to find out otherwise.

Now he looks at the cracks in the ceiling again, tracing the sharp corners and soft slopes with his eyes.

Little things are amazing now, he thinks, because his ungrateful human nature is leaking out, like a vessel with cracks.

Tentatively, he wonders if he could count his own facets.

Itachi counts them for him.

- - - - -

He wakes groggily, and he isn't sure where he is, bu tit's not on the ground because he feet swings beneath him, but his arms are above him, wrapped carefully around someone's neck. Breathing softly, he smells camellia and funeral incense from the fabric beneath his chin.

Someone talks to him, but there voice is far away, and he can do little other than try to move closer to the sound.

"I know you're awake, if only for a moment."

Naruto nods, though he doesn't know why. He recognizes it as Itachi's voice, but doesn't recognize the softer note to it.

"You've been incapacitated."

It explains the numbness of his legs, the angle of his arms, and why his head doesn't seem to want to obey anything that he says. He also wonders if he has fallen asleep and woken up only to be on the way to death (God). His heart beats a half-second faster, but doesn't fill him with the usual anxiety.

"It won't make sense to you now, and it doesn't need to either."

Why, is what he wants to ask. This Itachi he feels against his cheek is not warm (a damp cold, like Naruto imagined a corpse would be), nor is he kind (he always speaks gruffly, as though explaining were tedious.)

It's all very confusing to him, but there is one thing he realizes, and it makes his heart stop dead in his chest and his fingers curl softly into Itachi's raw silk hair.

He is leaving.

Naruto finds his voice somewhere between sleep and anger, a drowsy thing with slow movements. Each word is torn, forcibly, by desperation and he hopes that somehow Itachi will be able to understand what he is saying.

They have no sound, so he mutely moves his lips in the shape of them.

Somehow, Itachi understands.

"Just because everything seems like it will turn out one way does not mean that it is written in stone," says the Uchiha, and the words are whispered into the night air. (And it is night, because now he can pick up the sounds of leaves as he struggles to open his eyes, the smell of monsoon decay swelling in his head.)

Naruto manages weakly to look at Itachi, but only sees the side of one pale cheek.

"You will return to this place in time, and then you will be stronger, more focused. You will become a worthy opponent. For now, it is a waste to destroy someone for something I have no use for... yet."

It is a command and a promise, and he knows that it will one day be fulfilled. Itachi never speaks lightly, and Naruto has learned to value it. when Naruto looks into the Sharingan, he is trapped by its hypnotism and falls asleep, listening to the vibrato of Itachi's voice.

"Go find your peace. I am a patient man, and I will not kill dead men twice."

- - - - -

He wakes up on the ground, a plank poking into his back and the taste of ashes and fire in his mouth. The ceiling is broken up by charred wood, and Naruto can remember the flames that fell from them not so very long ago.

He can also remember bloody bandages that were wrapped around his legs skillfully but painfully, red eyes always watching him.

Turning his head, and much to his shock, he sees Jiraiya, clutching a curtly written note in Itachi's careful script. It is gripped between aging fingers, cut and bruised from handling too many kunai. It looks as if there has been a fight recently. Jiraiya, eyes tired and clothes looking worse for wear, smiles a little more fragile than he did before and says, "Welcome back from hell."

"Yeah, I guess." he says, but only to let Jiraiya know that he is alright (_he's not, but to say so would be cruel._)

"We've got another couple of months until the Akatsuki start moving again. I don't know how he did it, but that crazy Itachi seems to think you are useless until you finish training. Can't say that I'd blame him though," says Jiraiya, "after all, you really messed up this time. I suppose this is another lesson learned, but it's bought foolishly." He laughs. "I suppsoe this means you can start practicing your shinobi arts."

They both look at each other for a moment.

Naruto sees it all, an entire period of time before his eyes in a matter of seconds, every hateful and loving feeling that he had, rushing out of him and into a restive calm that he has been looking for forever. And he further knows that it is in Itachi's placid eyes instead of Sasuke's dark ones that he finds it.

"You are fortunate that Itachi was merciful enough to give you a grace period. He didn't seem to think the Akatsuki would know what to do with the Kyuubi at present anyway."

Naruto laughs, because Itachi's mercy is not mercy at all.

It's a sentence with no definite end.

Two months later, when he hears that Gaara has been taken, he feels a little thrill inside, because now, he has two things to fight for. To save his friend.

And to prove his worth to Itachi, not physically because that is nigh impossible, but to show that he has purpose again in life.

Living, after all, is synonymous with learning.

- - - - -

End.

- - - - -

A/N: I am unrepentantly ending this. This ending had been prepared and written for a while now, and it was always the intent to stop at the number nine. THIS is how it was intended to be.

The fact that it is abrupt is simple. Itachi is not going to sit and angst over whether or not to let Naruto go for a while. He's either going to say, yes let's do it, or, no that's stupid. For him to carry on with it for chapter upon chapter would be a waste of your time and my time. Remember, it's a story told in moments, and there are things that happen that we don't see. The story starts covering most moments is because it needed an initial basis.

Also, this is a tragedy story. Naruto and Itachi really don't merit a love story so much as an understanding. The kiss at the end of the previous chapter was not a sudden turn in a relationship so much as an act of desperation between the two, Naruto trying to destroy the dependency he had, and Itachi trying to understand Naruto. What happens is that Itachi finally understands where Naruto is coming from, learning to appreciate what you have. Naruto learns that there is a certain degree of disappointment and sadness in life, and learns not to take for granted what he has.

There will be no sequel, and there will be no further chapters.

Much thank to The Engine Driver for egging me on and keeping me working on this when I would have preferred to stop. Chances are, I would have never finished at all without it. To my reviewers, I lvoe you all, but I have been unable to respond to everyone. I will answer any questions in reviews from this chapter, because otherwise I'll be answering all of them for days. XD.


End file.
